May 21

May 21 TheW+ Food: Le Coucou by Roman & Williams / New York

Checking out Tyler Hays’ BDDW Shop for the first time left me completely “shook” as well as famished, so thank goodness I was set to go to my reservation at Le Coucou after that shop visit. Le Coucou is designed by the super prolific, Roman and Williams- former set designers-turned Interior Architects, as well as Furniture and Lighting designers... I will get to their own design shop, The Guild, in another post.

According to the Michelin Guide, the One-Star rated Le Coucou was founded by Chef Daniel Rose in collaboration with Philadelphia-based restaurateur, Stephen Starr, to create a space for “unapologetically French" cuisine, "making powerful traditional dishes that may have fallen by the wayside” over time.

I was keen to taste the food by Chef Rose of course, but truthfully just drawn to just experience what it was like to sit inside such an iconic light-filled space. All the photographs I’ve seen depicted the restaurant in daytime, so I booked a morning brunch. Lucky me, it turned out to be a gorgeous day. The ground floor shopfront space felt wonderful with its double height ceilings. The designers definitely worked with the shop's interiors AFTER the space was stripped bare of its previous incarnations, leaving behind plaster-free exposed walls and beams with wonderful brick surfaces and structures.

Working with a singular street side facade, the designers created a glass and metal grid window-wall streetside and within the inner dining room to create a Spatial layering of light.

The dining rooms are crowned with pewtered chandeliers and soft glass tulips giving the ceiling some drama with a touch of restraint. Softening each cavernous area are artful touches of blues and greens found within the wild plantings outside, the pastoral mural defining the drinks bar, and the warm open kitchen in gold and hunter green finish with brass detailing, which is the heart and hearth of the project. Upholstered dining chairs are Thonet circa 1925 in style.