Ever since Jen, Kevin and I came back from France, we decided we should start a "duck club" once we came back to NYC. Duck is such an underrated bird and so delicious that we felt like we should hit up all the spots in the city as much as we can. We were going for more of a Peking style duck when we first decided to start the club but I had seen Le Coq Rico on Instagram and immediately made a reservation.
The motto for this restaurant is "A bistro of beautiful birds" and indeed they have a full menu of beautiful birds. It's mostly chicken (they have several whole bird format) but they had a lovely duck for 3 on the menu which is what we came here for. Upon entering, I noticed that it's definitely much more on the stuffy French side than I expected. The clientele is older, whiter and generally more formal. But none the less, we were here for the birds and not people watching.
Almost everything is fowl related here, although there are a few sides that have no meat in them. We started the meal with leeks vinaigrette ($16) and the duck rillettes ($16) and obviously for our main we got the Rohan Farm Duck for 3 ($84) and a side of macaroni au gratin ($12). Yes, it is a bit crazy to pay that much for a bird but it's NYC, but I just write everything off as being ridiculous.
We got the leeks because we thought we were being "healthy" but it was really just covered in hollandaise sauce, so there's that. It was quite delicious even if it didn't really do it's job in being our healthy green dish of the night. The duck rillette was a bit of a disappointment as it was on the dry side. We ended up mixing it with the delicious butter that came with the bread to give it some more moisture to it. As for the star of the show, the duck was visually beautiful. It's served breast on the bone but they slice it up for you. It was quite a site for sore eyes. They also give you the au jus on the side in case you want to really try to trigger a heart attack but it was moist enough for me that I didn't need it (but I did sneak a taste it was yummy). The meat was cooked perfectly and the skin wasn't exactly crispy like a Peking duck but there was a nice balance of skin, fat and meat to each cut. Some of the pieces closer to the bone were harder to eat and eventually I went caveman style and gnawed on the bone but hey, if I'm paying almost $90 for this bird, I'm eating the whole damn thing. At this point, I didn't really need much of the macaroni and only had a few small bites.
They have a lovely but very expensive wine list - so a heads up on that. The servers there are all very French and gorgeous - so also a heads up on that. The overall experience felt very old school to me - it felt like I should have been on the UES instead of Flatiron. The duck was indeed great and I had a great time which is why I'm giving it 4 forks but the price point did make me pause and consider giving it a slightly lower rating. But I'm kind of in the holiday mood, so I'll be nice! Total bill: $138/pp with tax, tip and drinks
Photo Credit: Yelp
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