Cocody Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Houston

let me preface this with saying i work in fine dining here in houston (at a steakhouse mind you) and i am certainly not a casual diner by any means. it pains me to have to write this review because i had high hopes for this restaurant, but i am completely and utterly disappointed and angered by the experience i ended up receiving, especially as someone in the industry that knows what things should look like.

i came in on Saturday evening around 5pm to an empty restaurant. right off the bat the hostess made us feel a little unwanted by taking care of a group of ladies who came in after us before she had finished taking care of us and making us feel as though there was some sort of issue with us not having a reservation despite the fact that we were one of maybe three tables in the dining room. from there, things only got worse. i wish i knew my server’s name, however, he never introduced himself to the table and hardly spoke more than a few words to us at a time. service was EXTREMELY limited, consisting only of “do you need some more time/what can i get for you,” etc. my server made no attempt to connect with the table, ask if we were celebrating anything or if we had any allergies; as mentioned before, he didn’t even introduce himself to us. when our food was dropped he didn’t explain what we were eating or ensure that everything was prepared to our liking, he just dropped the food off (and my plate was chipped, by the way) and then walked away.

here’s where things get even worse. my $78 steak entree, ordered medium rare, came out somewhere between medium and medium well. working at a steakhouse, i know a medium rare steak should have a warm-red center. this steak was pink in the very center and closer to grey towards the outside edges, and very tough. my server then took at least six or seven minutes to come back to the table (remember, the restaurant is basically empty) and only came by after i had to flag him down from across the dining room, meaning he had no intention to even come by and check that the food was correct in the first place. after i sent the steak back, my server basically just picked it up and was like “so you want another one?” and did not even apologize for the mistake or assure me that it would be taken care of/seem apologetic in the slightest.

the manager’s response, however, is the cherry on top to this terrible experience. after explaining my grievances to him, he basically tried gaslighting me and was trying to argue with me that the steak i had was medium rare and it’s not the color i was expecting because the kitchen measures that it’s cooked correctly by the probing the temperature of the steak with a thermometer. if that’s correct, why was this “prime” steak not a beautiful warm red? for it to be cooked medium rare by the thermometer but be the pink-grey color it was, it would have either have had to be brined or a very poor quality of meat, either way, something is not adding up here. i took the opportunity of the manager stopping by to explain that i was disappointed with my service, and made sure to clearly, graciously, and professionally explain what had went wrong. the manager in turn looked a little taken aback, and then quite condescendingly said “thank you for your feedback.” and walked off. once again, not even a single apology for the mistakes of the kitchen nor the server.

it was then that i decided i would no longer sit and be disrespected by this place any longer and had to get up and walk to the host stand to ask for my check (because once again, my server was no where to be found and didn’t check back in to see if my issue had been resolved…interesting). while the manager did comp the ribeye, an automatic 20% gratuity had been put on the original bill (meaning it was 20% before the $78 steak was taken off, so i tipped $25 on $48). mind you, we were only a two top and autograt was not disclosed anywhere. overall i feel extremely disrespected and taken advantage of. -0/10, ive literally had better service at chili’s, and on top of all that the...

So disappointed. Went here with a group of 10 for a girlfriend’s birthday and the experience was so bad. To start, we got there at 7 and they didn’t take our cocktail order until 7:25 and didn’t get our drinks until 7:45. We placed our dinner order at probably 8 and didn’t get our food until 9. The food was okay but nothing great and the $20 drinks were not good at all. All while this is going on, the toilets did not work so the bathrooms were disgusting. At the end, we asked for our individual bills and the guy said he couldn’t do that, though we were never told when booking the reservation, that they do one bill for parties over 6. We ended up calling the manager over to see what they could do and he was so rude and unprofessional, he kept making excuses saying that it’s busy so they can’t and that they don’t do it during restaurant week and whatnot. We told him we’d been here a long time and we’re just ready to go and asked it to be done, as my girlfriend was a manger at a restaurant and knew the system was easily able to do that. In the end, they went ahead and split the bill (without even asking what we ordered so that obviously could’ve don’t it without all the back and forth), but not before threatening to take a while to do it. Before leaving to do the bills, the server announced to the whole table that he forget to add the water to the bill so we should be expecting that. In the beginning, the server offered sparkling or still water but little did we know at the time, they were charging for every little bottle of water and that other tables were being filled with tap, which is what we would’ve done, had we known. When we asked about it at the end, server said he offered tap but he definitely did not, so that was very deceitful. By 10:15 and after all the back and forth, we were fed up and ready to go, but the girls that did the restaurant week 3 course meal hadn’t gotten their deserts yet. We asked about it, and the server rudely replied he was working on it. We stuck around maybe 15 more minutes and it never came so we left. It was the worst experience I’ve had at a restaurant and we were so excited about it. It’s a very cute restaurant, and decorated so nice and the appetizers were good but the service, manager, drinks, wait and bathroom situation were so unsatisfactory. If I was a restaurant owner and I had a manager and server that treated my guests the way we were treated, I’d be very upset. The server still got his 20% service charge, and that’s probably one of the reasons our table was so neglected, as he didn’t actually have to work for his tip. It’s unfortunate that that’s the case, and that just because we’re women in our late twenties and early thirties, that we don’t get the same service as the older patrons around us. In the end, we paid for drinks we didn’t like and desserts we never got, got charged for water we didn’t want and “tipped” for service we didn’t receive. I would...

A stunning night out at the latest lavish playground for Houston’s gorgeous and glamorous…and I guess they were feeling the holiday spirit, because they even let me sneak in.

Cocody (1971 W. Gray), named after a tony district of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire (birthplace of one of the owners), just opened in Houston’s own Cocody--River Oaks--and judging from last night’s buzz, you should expect to hear plenty about this place. Chefs Lionel Debon and David Denis used to run the show at Le Mistral in the Energy Corridor, and they have created a menu that seamlessly blends France with the Gulf Coast. The setting includes soothing palettes of pink, peach, and gold and a ceiling peppered with hundreds of brightly-lit upturned crystal champagne glasses. Playful artwork abounds, including a whimsical take on the Mona Lisa.

We enjoyed the food, but I will say right awat that the highlight of our evening was the amazing service from Georgina and Phillip. Without ever being intrusive, they steered us through our evening the way the best tour guides do—the rare ones who seem sincerely in tune with delivering the best experience to you and providing you with memories as magical as the sites seen. There were some timing hiccups not at all a surprise in a new place but that were so clearly not the fault of our servers, and we were never bothered in the least, simply enjoying the electric atmosphere and endless people-watching and sips from our glorious Left Bank Bordeaux. But because he felt we had waited too long for entrees, Phillip insisted on bringing us a couple glasses of bubbles, and Georgina later comped us a dessert for the same reason. A manager came by to apologize, too. We don’t tend to say no to largesse, but the apologies and comps were unnecessary (though appreciated!)—we were enjoying every second of our evening together.

My husband's tolerance and cravings for unctuous foods is far greater than mine, and he was ready to start riding like Debra Winger on the mechanical bull in Urban Cowboy the fat thick slice of pan-seared Hudson Valley foie gras set atop sweetened poached pears and a gingerbread crouton, doused in a dense black currant coulis. An organic beets rosace salad, sprinkled with Montchevre cheese and a hazelnut vinaigrette was as alluring to view as to taste.

For entrees, I chose a slow baked Chilean sea bass in a saffron rouille, and my husband wolfed down a Linz Heritage center cut beef tenderloin in a Selim pepper au jus. For our comped dessert, we settled on one suggested by both our wonderful servers—a house-made Italian pistachio ice cream set upon a tart meringue disc.

The superb service made this meal over the top—I’m sure all the staff is superb, but I can’t imagine anyone doing a better job than Georgina and Phillip. We’ll be requesting their section on what I’m sure will be many...