Cock Art has a designer decor complete with trophy motorcycle.
The Paris restaurant scene seems to be all cock and balls these days. After the opening of Balls at the beginning of the year, we now have Cock Art on the northern edge of Paris. In case there was any doubt about the youthful owner’s understanding of the meaning of the word in English, it was immediately dispelled when we asked our waiter what the name meant. “The art of sex,” he replied.
Be that as it may, the real reason we went there was to check out the new Claude Bernard “eco-neighborhood” being developed along the Boulevard Macdonald in the 19th arrondissement, and Cock Art is the only restaurant to have opened there so far. One of my dinner companions was landscape architect Helen Stokes, whose analysis of the new quarter will be published in Paris Update in the near future. (Editor’s note: the article is now online.)
And what of the quarter’s one and only restaurant, located next to the gigantic, spanking-new UGC cinema? The results are mixed.
On the positive side:
The restaurant has obviously benefited from some healthy investment and has been properly fitted out with expensive fixtures and decor. It even has a fancy customized motorcycle parked inside, à la Hard Rock café (and god knows how many other places).
It also has an excellent sound system, which rendered the lounge/club-style music a pleasure to listen to. And, since it was played at a fairly reasonable volume, we were perfectly able to talk to each other without raising our voices.
Foodwise, the restaurant scored points by serving us homemade potato chips with our apéritif. More points were earned with one of the starters: two properly cooked soft-boiled
eggs atop a bed of shiitake mushrooms with an herby sauce. Excellent. The entrecôte was also quite good, or at least the second one was – the
first one I was served was well-done rather than rare as requested and had to be sent back, which the waiter did with fairly good grace.
The two desserts we tried, a crème brûlée and a
strawberry tiramisu, were surprisingly delicious.
On the down side:
The menu is unimaginative and incoherent, mixing such classics as warm goat-cheese
salad and avocado/shrimp salad (featuring frozen shrimp that tasted none too fresh) with trendy dishes like burrata or a duck and foie gras burger. The mashed potatoes that came
with the lamb chops were dry and had an unappealing texture.
While the service was well-meaning, we felt rather neglected seated at the far end of the large restaurant and had to go up to the bar a few times to ask for things when we tired of waiting.
Once the new quarter really comes to life as people start moving into the enormous warehouse across the street, currently being converted into apartments and commercial space, Cock Art will certainly have more competition. Let’s hope the owner will correct some of his restaurant’s faults. If he does, he could have quite a fine little brasserie, in spite of its silly name.
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