Dinner at Le Coucou (Update)

There’s a hot new French restaurant in Manhattan, so naturally we wanted to go. We love classic French food, far more so than the nouvelle cuisine that so many chefs try to invent so they can become famous for their being on the cutting edge. The name is Le Coucou. The problem is getting a reservation.

Dr. SJ gave them a call to make a reservation, but no one answered the phone. Then again, they use Open Table for reservations, so no reason to speak with a human being. It seems they only do reservations a month in advance. Fair enough. So, she gave it a go on a Saturday morning to make a reservation four Saturdays hence. Nothing. Not a chance. Booked solid.

Le Couou, being the hot new restaurant, likely attracts a great many people who, like us, want to try it, and perhaps like us, appreciate classic French cuisine more than the new cool kind. Have you ever tried Tobacco Ice Cream? It’s disgusting. You can’t make this stuff up. What we figured was that they opened reservations at midnight. Maybe the deal was to punch in that Open Table reservation around midnight to get a reservation. That must be it.

Unfortunately, neither Dr. SJ nor I are close friends with midnight anymore. Sure, we were once, when we were young and hip, but these days, not so much. Not to be put off, we had a secret plan. Our son is out in San Francisco. While he has a close and endearing relationship with midnight regardless, our midnight is his 9 p.m. Easy peasy.

So we asked him to hop on the website at 9, make a reservation for us, and sat back wondering what the foie gras of the day might be. In the morning, my email showed no Open Table confirmation. Was the internet broken? I asked him what happened.

Turned out that he was on the phone with his best friend at 9 p.m., who was having a crisis over his sex love life. Kidz. But he hit send on the reservation request a few minutes after nine. And…boom, nothing. Nothing available. Not at the time we wanted. Not two hours before. Not two hours after. Nothing.

Well, hot is hot, and Le Coucou is, if nothing else, hot. Hopefully good as well as hot, but that’s only to be learned by eating there, which first requires a reservation. We set out sights on the following week.

Same deal, a reminder email to our son, all the information again just in case. This time, however, I emphasized to him the time, 9 p.m.  Not 9:03. Not 9:01. Nine. I reminded him of some of the nicer things I’ve done for him in his life, and some of the indignities I’ve endured as his father, in order to guilt him a bit into doing as I asked. He promised he would.

The next Saturday morning, i checked my email. Nothing. No confirmation. No email explaining that a meteor crashed through my son’s apartment window. Nothing.

When it was respectable to call him, meaning when there was a chance he would be awake and answer the phone, I did and asked.

What happened?

I tried.

At nine?

Exactly at nine.

Are you telling me the truth?

Yes.

And nothing?

Nothing.

What about before and after?

Nothing.

Nothing?

Nothing.

We don’t always have exciting telephone conversations.

Both Dr. SJ and I have birthdays during the month of February, so we try to enjoy a birthday dinner for the two of us to jointly celebrate. This was planned to be our dinner. It’s not working out nearly as well as we had hoped.

How is it possible that we can’t get a reservation at Le Coucou, even with our brilliant scheme of having our left coast ally make the midnight reservations for us? Are there so many, so very many, people hitting the send button a millisecond ahead of us so that we can’t sneak in? Is the food at Le Coucou really that good as to be worth this much effort?

Years ago, at the original Bouley, I was always able to get a reservation for dinner. The maître dhôtel, Dominique, took an inexplicable shine to me. He always squeezed us in. David Bouley is my favorite chef ever, even after the time he neglected to put the white truffles on my dish and, when told, threw a plate of them on my table from five feet away. I loved that restaurant, and will always be thankful for it. Will I feel the same about Le Coucou?

I have no answers to any of these questions. I only know that we tried to get a reservation and failed. If we were meant to eat dinner at Le Coucou, we wouldn’t have had such difficulty.  C’est la vie.

Update: Le Coucour was kind enough to email me today (January 30th) and give me the dinner reservations I sought.

37 thoughts on “Dinner at Le Coucou (Update)

  1. Nick Lidakis

    “…and some of the indignities I’ve endured as his father…” Start elaborating on the blog and I’m sure he’ll figure it out. You really want to eat there, right?

          1. Nick Lidakis

            If it’s any consolation, dinner will be served on the 26th, but desert will definitely be served on the 27th.

  2. clonedaddy

    Easier to get a classic French restaurant booking:
    Transfer 72,000 points to Etihad, then use Etihad to book Brussels Air in business class roundtrip for 2 from NYC-Brussels-NYC. Take the train to Paris. It’s under 200 miles.

    Yeah , it’s 36,000 points roundtrip pp in business class and a lot more available than this restaurant, it seems.

    Both of you apply for the Hyatt credit card, and you can stay four nights for free at the Park Hyatt Place Vendomme, plus you’ll get a free night at a Hyatt every year.

    I could have saved Bob Menendez from a lot of grief, and a horrible use of American Express points.

    You’re welcome. There’s only one clone left for adoption. Trust me, you need an ESA, just not for dinner.

  3. Tom H

    Your experience reminded me of the time I tried to get into the French Laundry. Except that was before Open Table, just dialing and redialing a number that was always busy.

    Never had Tobacco ice cream, but I have had horseradish ice cream and it exceeded my expectation, which wasn’t very high.

      1. Kirk Taylor

        The secret to reservations at exclusive restaurants is groups of 6 or more. Everyone wants table for 2 or 4. Got a French Laundry reservation on the first try, hours after the phone lines opened for that day, because I had a party of 7. My suggestion is booking a table for 8, and then selling the extra 6 seats on craigslist.

          1. Kirk Taylor

            Who knows, they might be fun. If you charge enough you can make a profit even after paying for your meal. Rich people are stupid…especially in New York.

            1. SHG Post author

              Somebody told me to get reservations for Sunday, when they’re available. If I wanted reservations for Sunday, that when I would have gotten them. But seriously, Craigslist. Yes!!!

  4. Patrick Maupin

    “You can’t make this stuff up.”

    Obviously, someone did, but I’m guessing from your comment it wasn’t you.

      1. JimEd

        I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for an update on your trendy Manhattan french restaurant reservation dinner issue. You synergized your intangibles with the help of your tangibles to bring your quest for a table to conclusion. I hope you will videotape with your smart phone, the flinging of food from five feet away since you failed to record it last time the truffles danced.

        I look forward to your journey as lawyer-food critic. I’m sure it will be a disaster.

  5. John Sherwood

    There’s some reservations available later in February (the 21st at 11 PM, the 26th at 9:45 and 10:00 PM) according to open table at the moment.

  6. Billy Bob

    I would just “show up.” That’s what Woody Allen would do. You know,… half of life,… is,… just,…
    Like telling the judge, “The dog ate my brief last nite, and that’s why we’re not ready this morning, Your Honor. At least, I/we showed up [for court].
    Le CouCou? Who came up with that one? Only in Manhattan! Keep taking Dr. SJ out to dinner, the key to a happy marriage. There’s always Chinese, without reservation. Stir-fry, yum.

  7. Pingback: Dinner At LeCouCou (The Day After) | Simple Justice

Comments are closed.