Cocorico was a medium sized place serving Mediterranean cuisine.  Chef Nat Borsi and his wife Grace dreamed of owning their own place for years.  His experience came from many fine kitchens and hers was in hospitality.  Named for the French translation of ‘cock-a-doodle-doo’ it was to be French but not too much.   Opening in August 2022 it seems to be a local favorite drawing a steady stream of customers the night we were there.  Open Tues to Sat they have both indoor and patio seating.  At first they didn’t take phone reservations, but now the website refers you to tock  The room we were in had some art on the walls, windows to the street, music in the background and bench seating along the walls.  The lights were lowered and the medium sized bare wood tables were fairly close.  They have a full bar and street parking is your option if you can’t walk there.  Service was good and the hostess at the door made you feel most welcome.  The food was great, the portions large and I’d easily recommend the place and go back if I’m ever back in the area.

Set-up

 

Food

The asparagus appetizer was with goat cheese, pine nuts, and a red wine shallot vinaigrette.  Even though the asparagus were not peeled they were very tender and nicely grilled.  The warm asparagus mixed nicely with the goat cheese and vinaigrette, which was different than the listed dijon one.  The pine nuts were wonderful and the whole plate held lots of great tastes.

 

The endive and arugula salad also contained radicchio, blue cheese, candied walnuts,  citrus  and was tossed with a red wine vinaigrette.   It was a huge bowl of salad.  The arugula still had the stems which were tender but slightly unwieldy to eat and not smack them into your face.  The crisp nuts were sweet and matched well with the sharp blue cheese.   The citrus was mostly grapefruit and delicious.  It was a great combination but far too much for just one.

 

The Steak was a ribeye served with roasted carrots, confit fingerling potatoes and black garlic butter.  You had an option to order flat iron but my husband chose the bone in ribeye which was cooked a nice rare as ordered.  Underneath was a huge pile of young sweet delicious carrots and perfectly roasted potatoes.  The only ding on the plate was that the compound butter was still a bit cold and stiff and took quite a while to warm up and coat the meat.  The beef was chewy but tasty.

 

A special that evening was duck confit with fava beans and asparagus, sweet potatoes mixed with white potatoes that were mashed and mixed with Boursin cheese and an oyster mushroom and cognac cream sauce.  The leg quarter was cooked nicely with a good crisp skin and fat rendered.  The mushroom sauce was delicious and underneath the duck was a ton of sliced asparagus and fava beans.  There was an equally large portion of mixed mashed potatoes under that. Everything was very good.

 

We finished with a Strawberry Almond Tart that was served with house vanilla ice cream and strawberry sauce.   The almonds had been made into the tart crust as well as roasted, slivered and sprinkled on top.  It was sweet but not overly so with good fruit flavor.  The texture of the ice cream and tart crust were very different and both excellent.  It was a fine way to end this fine meal.