Le Coq Reviews

This place was The Herringbone some time ago and now it’s Le Coq and let me tell you that this was quite a great surprise!!! The place is beautiful!!! They made an incredible job!!!! We lived it from the moment we went in. The owner greeted us and gave un an amazing table. The service was amazing!!! We had the most wonderful waiter. Their menu is delicious!!! We didn’t know what to choose but we did great because the food was delicious. One of those meals you just don’t want to end…. Will be back for sure and you should try it!!!!

Checked out Le Coq with a group of 4 to celebrate our friends’ birthdays! We made a reservation for around 6pm on a weekday and there seemed to still be a lot of tables open by the time our dinner ended. I hear this place can get very busy so I recommend making reservations regardless. The place is intimate which makes it a great place for celebrations. Parking: This place shares a similar problem along with any other business in downtown La Jolla and that is *parking*. Make sure to allot for time searching for street parking. I believe there might be some paid lots around as well. Service: Great service by Randall! He explained everything well and gave us a few suggestions. Our food came out in a timely manner. Food: We ordered family style which I believe was the best way to try out many different dishes. By the end of our dinner, we were all pretty full and even had left overs. -Jus d’Ete ($17) drink: calamansi cocktail -Baguette with chicken skin butter ($12): served with a small baguette, perfect to share with a party of 4. -Steak Tartare ($23): served with fresh potato chips and was very flavorful. -Onion Tart ($18): short rib with caramelized onions. The waiter poured sauce around the tart. Loved this dish. -Spinach Gnocchi ($36): great flavor, looked small but filling. I would agree with some of the reviews that the gnocchi was a little too soft -Duck Confit ($38): this dish is one of my top duck confit dishes! -Green Beans ($14): served with shallot and garlic . -10oz Denver Steak ($62) comes with a sauce of your choice: our server suggested with Au Poivre sauce and it complemented the meat so well -Pistachio Paris-Brest ($18): I enjoyed this dessert! Our friends received complimentary chocolate mousse for their birthdays. Overall: Our party had a great time at Le Coq. Enjoyed the environment, service, and food. Next time, I’d like to try out their happy hour menu.

My husband rates Le Coq’s DUCK CONFIT as his favorite, most flavorful in San Diego. The accompanying butter beans and spring pea shoots with dabs of green sauce in the plate (not on top of the duck) was phenomenal. I had a most tender FILET MIGNON cooked perfectly medium rare, sliced and presented with a choice of sauce in a side dish. The bordelaise was thin but tasty spooned over the filet. I swear someone massaged that beef! We also had a side salad with a citrusy champagne vinaigrette. The SIDE SALAD was Petite paper thin sliced radishes on top of fresh gem lettuce. Seriously enough as a starter item. French BREAD is crusty and served warm with a salty butter. I would RETURN. It was great!

The decor of Le Coq is gorgeous, really outstanding. Every design detail and material choice is perfect down to the tiniest detail. I loved being in that ambience. The service was excellent. The menu was limited and not much choice for a person with a dairy allergy and no red meat but we did know it IS French. We started with a house made baguette and butter. A little disappointing, dry and firmer than a typical French baguette but serviceable. The servers could suggest not ordering the bread prior to the main course as there is more than ample sauce on the 2 entrees to soak up the flavor. This would make butter unnecessary probably. We ordered the chicken and the swordfish amandine. In a French restaurant with the name,Le Coq, one would anticipate the pedestrian chicken to be elevated to new heights especially at the $44.00 tab. If you have ever eaten the $5.00 or so Costco roast chicken, you know it is is delicious, juicy, moist and flavorful. The Le Coq offering was dry, tough and stringy, we brought 1/2 of it home to the dog, she loved it. ( For a great chicken restaurant entree, check out the Jerk chicken at the nearby Nine Ten restaurant, outstanding.) No amount of pooled brown butter sauce on the Swordfish could disguise that it was overcooked. the amount of swimming butter was unappealing and lacking in nuance. The ala carte green beans and the chicory, Humboldt fog cheese salad were lovely. I chose the house made pear sorbet for dessert, bypassing an overly complicated sounding chocolate mouse cake with a brownie bottom and hazelnut praline ice cream. the dessert description sounded like something one would find in U.S chain restaurant. A French straightforward chocolate mousse with a dollop of chantilly cannot be improved upon in my opinion. I take the time to write this long review because so much here was spot on and it is my hope that the chef can get the entire menu up to speed.

We took our family of 8 adults here to celebrate the holidays. It was our first visit. The space is lovely especially the bar area. We were instructed about the menu some dishes for sharing & a few items for a single diner. We ordered shared appetizers & a few other items. My son in law And I each ordered the lamb chops medium well. He sent his back to be cooked a more and watched as the waiter carried the dish away, put it on the counter, waited two minutes & brought it back to him. The same thing happened to me but I didn’t see it . My lamb chops were brought back to me cold and still too rare. My son in law found the manager & told him of this incident. They comped him his dinner and have us free desserts. The staff is a bit full of itself. The food is just OK & highly overpriced. You can do much better in San Diego for French food. I personally love great food in a warm & friendly environment. Le Coq is NOT that.The place is a bit full of itself while presenting average food at an exhortative price. Their other restaurant Anime is the same. We will not go back.

Celebrated our anniversary here, and everything was spectacular! For cocktails, I had the Cha, which was a Japanese whiskey + green tea concoction. I really enjoyed it, and ordered another. My wife had the Neuf Connection which was refreshing, but switched to the Langlois Rose later. We started with the Tuna Tartare and Fried Oysters, both fantastic. Fried Oysters were more like a tempura, which I love. For entrees we shared the popular Steak Frites, which lived up to the hype, and splurged on the Miyazaki A5 strip which melted in the mouth. We ordered the Pave as a side based on the server recommendation, and it was like a delicious hash brown. Pistachio for dessert which was good but nothing special. The service was exceptional. At one point Pinay Chef Tara Monsod herself came out to serve it, and that was incredible. She was super nice, and even took the time to get a picture with us. The restaurant was beautiful, in a refurbished old car dealership. Wish we had one of the booths with more space, as our table was very tight right next to tables next to us - that part I did not like. Overall we enjoyed our anniversary night and would go back here again. I highly recommend checking this place out.

Had a FANTABULOUS girls’ night here. We came on a Sunday, and it was pretty low-key, but we heard that Fridays and Saturdays can be overly exciting. Will have to come back and give it another try when we’re in town. Dinner was DELISH and Caleb was the best server! We had a friend that didn’t drink, but he brought her a very small glass of light champagne for her to sip on. After dinner, we moved over to the bar for some cocktails and closed the place down. Would definitely recommend this restaurant; food and cocktails were really good. The severs, bust boy, bartender and hosts were also very nice.

The staff was warm, kind and accommodating. It was Sunday and not crowded at 6:30. There were 5 of us and this was a second visit for us. Halfway through dinner we got urgent texts, 2 of them to come outside immediately because the valet was closing early. My husband was angry at having to leave his dinner to go out of the restaurant to the parking lot which is next to the restaurant. The valet could have come in to us. The dinners were not good. They were all too salty and the frittes we asked for were big, mushy things not the frittes we had at a previous dinner on our last visit. The chicken I ordered came with the foot attached, not appetizing at all. It was stringy, tough, dry and the only taste came from the gravy poured over it. The pork chop was good but too salty. The puréed potatoes were just ok. They took the 2 desserts off the bill for our inconvenience. Malarky has a habit of going in like a bright star, but he has no staying power. He turns the kitchen over and doesn't stay involved. The room is big and has no intimate nooks or areas for parties of 6 or 8 or larger. The interior of the room is not conducive to intimate dining. The bathrooms are small and the doors in the men's room almost touch the toilet. None of us will be going back.

First chance to visit executive chef Tara Monsad's new restaurant in La Jolla, CA. Started with a warm baguette and seaweed butter, then on to mussels with a blue cheese foam. Was wonderfully surprised of how well it worked together. Next sweetbreads and the steak frites. Had a great L'Aventure Optimus wine that paired perfectly. Tara, thanks for a wonderful meal!