Cote 550: Simon Kim’s Lavish NYC Korean Steakhouse Expansion & Dining Experience

Simon Kim's Cote 550, a grand NYC Korean steakhouse, expands on the original's luxury, featuring a colossal room, unique bars, and signature dishes like the Butcher's Feast. It offers a refined dining experience with global ambitions and a diverse menu.

Cote 550’s Grand Entrance & Ambiance

When you’re past the barriers, pylons, and hulking N.Y.P.D. mobile checkpoint, and via the door to Prevent Chimera (which you need to go with to get to the other restaurants), all that anxious energy does not precisely liquify, yet it does transform form, right into supercharged biz-cazh pleased hour. The room is massive in every dimension, with a sixty-foot room and huge windows ignoring Madison Opportunity. From the facility, a twenty-three-foot Norfolk-pine tree ascends, looking unavoidably Christmassy, bordered by deluxe booths and three unique, stage-set bar areas: one for Martinis, with mirrored backgrounds and icy-white lighting; one for whiskey, warmly lit, with wood racks and a moving ladder; and one devoted to the huge and rarefied a glass of wine listing, which includes a classic Madeira dating to 1835.

Simon Kim’s Restaurant Empire

Kim seems constitutionally incapable of doing anything tiny; his follow-up to the initial Cote, the Oriental fried-chicken joint COQODAQ, also in Flatiron, came to be popular almost quickly for its encyclopedic sparkling wine list, created by the team’s drink supervisor, Victoria James, and for its Golden Nugget, a boneless-chicken bite covered with a generous dollop of relish. Pass with a night-clubby area– Cote’s bar, where a d.j. spins celebration beats beginning at five– and past the trippy optical-illusion remainder areas, down a nicely disorienting blue-neon-framed passage that appears to go on forever, and you’ll discover yourself at Cote 550. Kim, a practiced macher, is still operating with more knowledge and better taste than a lot of, and I used to believe that Cote was complying with the Carbone version (which, in turn, seemed to mainly comply with the Nobu design), broadening its company right into a high-status luxury chain while maintaining much of the lightning-in-a-bottle magic that made the original so irresistibly engaging.

Make a turn at Bar Chimera’s host stand and descend a oddly narrow and dark stairs. Pass with a night-clubby room– Cote’s bar, where a d.j. spins celebration beats beginning at five– and past the trippy optical-illusion rest spaces, down a pleasingly disorienting blue-neon-framed tunnel that seems to go on permanently, and you’ll discover yourself at Cote 550. The restaurant is flashier and more glamorous than the original, with moody black floors, quietly spotlit tables, mirrored ceilings, and wall surfaces leafed in living plant.

Kim appears constitutionally unable of doing anything tiny; his follow-up to the original Cote, the Korean fried-chicken joint COQODAQ, likewise in Flatiron, ended up being popular nearly promptly for its encyclopedic sparkling wine list, created by the team’s drink supervisor, Victoria James, and for its Golden Nugget, a boneless-chicken bite topped with a charitable glob of eggs. Cote 550, as it’s called, makes up just one-third of it; the address is home to 3 brand-new Gracious Friendliness restaurants, piled up and down.

One of Cote’s winky Asian-steak-house productions, also readily available at Bar Chimera, is a recipe called Oyster “Dynamite,” a crossbreed of oysters Rockefeller and seafood dynamite, the sushi-fusion clubstaurant staple. Kim, a consummate macher, is still running with more knowledge and better preference than most, and I made use of to assume that Cote was following the Carbone design (which, in turn, appeared to primarily adhere to the Nobu version), expanding its company right into a high-status luxury chain while keeping much of the lightning-in-a-bottle magic that made the original so irresistibly engaging. At Cote 550, there’s a Midori sour on the cocktail checklist!

The restaurateur Simon Kim opened Cote in the Flatiron district, in 2017, with an attractive pomposity: a marital relationship of two of the wonderful beef-worshipping restaurant categories, the Korean-barbecue joint and the American steak home. In the time because, Kim and his business, Gracious Friendliness Administration, have taken Cote worldwide, opening up stations in Miami, Singapore, and Las vega– and, as of April, in midtown.

Signature Dishes & Menu Highlights

As at the initial Cote– and all the others– the centerpiece of the food selection is the Butcher’s Feast: a prix fixe that includes four cuts of meat cooked for you, by one of the restaurant’s web servers, at your table’s grill. The dish includes a terrific variety of banchan and sides, my favorites being a dish of cooled okra, sticky and with a little bit of warmth, and Cote’s reasonably well-known scallion salad, a wonder of curlicued bits made wonderful and gently sour from a fermented clothing. The meat, consisting of a good item of wall mount steak and some strangely gristly rib eye, is great enough (if you desire more and lovelier cuts, you’ll need to level up your order to the Steak Omakase), and it’s served well by the lettuces, sauces, and various other little bits and bobs with which you’re encouraged to eat it. The banquet opens with a shiso leaf birthing a geometric cube of o-toro, significant and a little awkwardly huge, and concludes with a mug of tasty soft serve, small and rewarding.

The Butcher’s Feast is sufficient for a full meal, however there are other prizes, also, like a beef-noodle soup improved a marvelously rich, a little offal-ish brew made with marrow bones, with paper-thin pieces of A5-Wagyu rib eye swimming in it like manta rays. (You can get a cup of just the broth, for sipping, upstairs at Bar Chimera.) Also brand-new at this Cote is a luxe japchae, whose components are rolled know a lovely cart bearing little bowls– noodles, veggies julienned to pleasing uniformity, and a truthfully huge section of pleasant Alaskan-king-crab meat. “It’s our take on the tableside Caesar salad,” my web server explained. (There is likewise a Caesar salad, in a doenjang dressing; it’s layered in the kitchen.) The japchae setting up is much more mechanical than remarkable, however the servers that put it with each other are charming and chatty adequate to carry the efficiency. Additionally charming: the cocktail food selection’s hangover prophylactic, ZBiotics, a vial of clear liquid that tastes like watery yogurt, and– regarding I could tell, after downing a solid cocktail on a primarily empty stomach– really seems to work.

The restaurateur Simon Kim opened Cote in the Flatiron district, in 2017, with an appealing conceit: a marital relationship of two of the great beef-worshipping restaurant genres, the Korean-barbecue joint and the American steak house. He obtained Cote’s style from the former, with grills inset right into table tops and a timeless Oriental food selection of meat, sauces, and banchan. From the American steak house, he embraced a specific slick-edged expense-account swagger, with dark-leather design, a dry-aging program, a significant wine list, and European-inspired friendliness. The name itself lugged a double entendre– cote, in Korean, means “flower,” or “significance,” however the word likewise stimulates “côte de boeuf,” the French term for a standing rib roast. Within a year, Kim’s restaurant came to be the first Korean-barbecue place in the world to gain a Michelin celebrity. While because, Kim and his company, Gracious Friendliness Management, have taken Cote worldwide, opening outposts in Miami, Singapore, and Las Vegas– and, as of April, in midtown.

Diverse Menu & Beverage Insights

Fried-octopus attacks, though, were like eating on a knotted hair connection, and a pairing of melon with bresaola– healed beef, standing in for the more traditional prosciutto, in what I think was a nod to Cote’s reverence of the cow– was level and fatty-tasting. Significant on the menu is a burger, the very first at a Kim joint: it’s moderate in size (an and also in my book), with a medium-rare patty that’s textural and complicated, plus a slim melt of American cheese with crunchy Parmesan. My only real quibble is that a beverages list this wide should not consist of simply 3 non-alcoholic alcoholic drinks, one of which transformed out to just be a tinned adaptogen-whatever beverage, poured tableside into a glass.