Coucou — Restaurant in Los Angeles

The food and drinks are lovely, creative, and at times surprising. The kitchen staff deserves 5 stars. Like some of the other reviews, my disappointment is w the front of house staff, at least in part, tho I think their failings is actually a reflection of bad training, so I think my disappointment ultimately should be directed at management. The staff’s problem is that they seem to think they are in the business of selling food -- restaurants of a good enough quality arent in the food business as much as they are in the entertainment business. By that I mean I go to nice restaurants for an experience. Sure, I eat and drink, that is like the special effects in the movie -- the ambiance is a big player how the plating is done, the flatware choice, the choice of scents in the bathroom. What I have to think is immensely hard about running a really l nice restaurant is everything is judged.

With that being said, I am not gripping about the flatware, but by how the staff treated me and my friends and family. When the night began, I asked to move tables -- irritating for sure, but I want to move tables so I could put my 4 month old son’s stroller at the end of the table. There were two tables that were open that provided this opportunity, but I was told out-of-hand, no. My guess is that the staff didn't realize how much this means to a new parent -- I am desperate to get out of the house, and while I love my baby so much, and I do not want to hold them on one of rare occasions I can get out. If there were no other options, I would totally understand, but there were two tables that afforded this accommodation. This is a parent problem -- so while the 22-25 yr old staff said the word “no” flatly and unapologetically, they unlikely understand the context of my life -- what saying no means an how holding my (amazing) kid thru dinner makes my life harder, and tarnishes the magic of a night out. Management should be teaching the staff a notion of radical hospitality -- to encourage them to think creatively on how to say yes. How to bring small moments of joy to their guests. For those who think I am insane for bringing an infant out on a Friday night, I can tell you my son’s first restaurant experience was at 5 days, we take him out multiple times a week, and if he becomes unsettled, we extracte him as to not disturb other patrons. To those who think my complaint is a one off, I say this. Toward the end of our stay, right before they brought dessert for my birthday, they asked if we could hurry up as the next party was waiting. We sat at 7, and it was 815/830.... If management wants two seatings, enforce a 6 and 8 pm seating. Coucou bills itself as a French restaurant -- not a bistro, but a restaurant. Being coaxed out of your chair, on your birthday, holding a baby, which could have it's own chair, while eating, isn't a magical experience. It feels like the staff didn't care about me, or my party, or if I gave a critical review. I felt like they didn't care. Which sucks.

Again, the food is lovely -- the ceviche (not sure how French) is really wonderful. But I chose this restaurant cause I was excited to celebrate, and I was hoping to for them to make me feel special. That is a tall order, and maybe an unfair one to ask a random restaurant on a random Friday, but still, there are a number of other places that make me feel like they are glad I sat down a chose to break bread with them. Tonight, I felt like I was just being served food and pushed out the door. I honestly wish I could recommend Coucou, I was excited. Too bad., but it's ok, I will...

I live very close by in MDR and have already tried all the other French restaurants in LA so I was really excited to try this one. The TLDR is the food taste and quality is high, but the pricing and size of the restaurant are big negatives. The tables are so close together that it’s not the sort of place to have a private conversation or first date and the prices are really too high. There is also a 30% service charge added on to your bill, which does not include tip even though tip is suggested after the 30% is added on, which is insane. As mentioned it’s very small on the inside and gives me more of a bar/lounge vibe than a full functioning restaurant. The bar takes up about half of the restaurant and the handful of tables make up the rest. There is just enough space to squeeze in between each table so you can hear all the conversations around you and others can hear yours as well, which I was not a fan of. Our waitress was very polite, but it took over 45 mins for our entrées to come out after our appetizers were finished. They also have a very limited nonalcoholic drink menu so if you’re not drinking alcohol or water, your options will be very limited. There is not a dedicated parking lot so it will be metered street parking however because I’m a local I just took a Waymo over.

As mentioned the food taste is really great, even though the prices aren’t. I started off with the Steak Tartare and this was my second favorite dish of the night. It had very deep, rich flavors. I especially liked the grain mustard mixed in and thought it really made the dish special. Next came the Zucchini Beignets and I was not a fan of these. I’m not sure what the flavor was, but there was something in it that I just did not like. Also beignet is a bit misleading because I was thinking something light and fluffy, but rather it was almost like a hush puppy. I would not recommend. We followed that with the French Onion Soup and thought this one was fantastic. It was a light broth, not the thicker burgundy broth, which is my preference. I love the light broth a lot more and think it adds a lot more flavoring so this one was a great dish that I would highly recommend. For my entree I chose the Dorade and this was my favorite dish of the night. It was perfectly cooked fish and the lemon caper sauce that it was sitting in really added to the flavoring. It was also a very good sized portion. Finally for dessert we had the Soft Serve Sundae which was very good although a bit overpriced for $16. I also ordered a Coke for $6 so it just kind of shows you that the pricing here is very skewed.

Overall we had a nice experience, but due to the pricing and other competition very close by I don’t plan to be back in the future. If the pricing was more reasonable, I would definitely recommend and be back, but until that happens, I...

Came here last Friday as group of 5 for dinner. We ordered several entrées one of them being the steak frites. Towards the end of our dinner I had emptied out my tin of fries that came with my entrée to share with the group to find a fried bug/earwig at the bottom. I wish I had taken a photo to share here for evidence but was too disgusted with what we had discovered. We immediately reported this to our waiter who escalated to the manager. They were really apologetic and offered to remove one of the cheaper entrées off our bill when it actually came from my steak frites. In addition they offered a single complimentary dessert...to feed a group of 5. I tried to negotiate, at the very least, a round of cocktails but the manager was hesitant and offered a round of Lillet instead. We weren't thrilled about it but we decided it was better than sharing one dessert for the 5 of us.

Though the gesture and the apology was appreciated, I honestly thought they should have found a better way to make it up to our group or offered a better compensation equivalent to finding a fried bug in our food. If management had offered a better alternative I would have considered giving the restaurant another shot. After this experience our group will likely never...