Restaurant Review: Cote 550

The restaurateur Simon Kim opened Cote successful the Flatiron district, successful 2017, with an alluring conceit: a matrimony of 2 of the large beef-worshipping edifice genres, the Korean-barbecue associated and the American steak house. He borrowed Cote’s format from the former, with grills inset into tabletops and a classical Korean paper of meat, marinades, and banchan. From the American steak house, helium adopted a definite slick-edged expense-account swagger, with dark-leather décor, a dry-aging program, a superior vino list, and European-inspired hospitality. The sanction itself carried a treble meaning—cote, successful Korean, means “flower,” oregon “essence,” but the connection besides evokes “côte de boeuf,” the French word for a lasting rib roast. Within a year, Kim’s edifice became the archetypal Korean-barbecue spot successful the satellite to gain a Michelin star. In the clip since, Kim and his company, Gracious Hospitality Management, person taken Cote global, opening outposts successful Miami, Singapore, and Las Vegas—and, arsenic of April, successful midtown.

Kim seems constitutionally incapable of doing thing small; his follow-up to the archetypal Cote, the Korean fried-chicken associated COQODAQ, besides successful Flatiron, became celebrated astir instantly for its encyclopedic champagne list, created by the group’s beverage director, Victoria James, and for its Golden Nugget, a boneless-chicken wound topped with a generous dollop of caviar. But the newest task is his grandest yet, and helium knows it. “This is my Sistine Chapel,” helium told Grub Street, referring to the soaring ceilings of 550 Madison, the postmodern operation successful which his latest task is housed. Cote 550, arsenic it’s called, makes up conscionable one-third of it; the code is location to 3 caller Gracious Hospitality restaurants, stacked vertically. Cote 550 occupies a moody subterranean space; supra it is the much casual Bar Chimera, connected the cathedral-like main floor; and connected the mezzanine level is simply a not yet unfastened sushi-omakase counter, to beryllium helmed by the super-chef Masahiro Yoshitake, whose sushi-yas successful Tokyo and Hong Kong each person aggregate Michelin stars.

Diners participate the analyzable connected Fifty-sixth Street betwixt Fifth and Madison, an country that’s closed to car postulation owing to the beingness of Trump Tower connected the block’s northwestern corner. Once you’re past the barricades, pylons, and hulking N.Y.P.D. mobile checkpoint, and done the doorway to Bar Chimera (which you indispensable spell done to scope the different restaurants), each that jittery vigor doesn’t precisely dissolve, but it does alteration form, into supercharged biz-cazh blessed hour. The country is tremendous successful each dimension, with a sixty-foot atrium and immense windows overlooking Madison Avenue. From the center, a twenty-three-foot Norfolk-pine histrion ascends, looking unavoidably Christmassy, surrounded by plush booths and 3 distinct, stage-set barroom areas: 1 for Martinis, with mirrored backdrops and icy-white lighting; 1 for whiskey, warmly lit, with woody shelves and a rolling ladder; and 1 dedicated to the immense and rarefied vino list, which includes a vintage Madeira dating to 1835. High up connected an interior wall, successful jarring opposition with the muted sandstone tones of the remainder of the room, is simply a neon enactment by the creator Martin Creed proclaiming “DON’T WORRY.” Was I worried? Should I beryllium worried?