Rockwell Group Elevates A Korean Fried Chicken Eatery

2024 Best of Year Winner for Fine Dining

Settled into expansive hunter green leather-and-walnut booths under illuminated cast glass-and-bronze arches, consuming fried chicken becomes an elevated, theatrical experience at Coqodaq, a restaurant designed by the Rockwell Group named after an onomatopoeia for cock-a-doodle-doo in Korean. The cathedral-like space in New York for restauranteur Simon Kim’s high-end twist (caviar and champagne are also on the menu) on the beloved Korean pub food measures 4,300 square feet and offers an almost ritual approach to dining. Upon entry, guests first encounter a moody handwashing station, constructed of green soapstone, with edge-lit, black-tinted oval mirrors—their shape, like the logo, egg-inspired—then move either to a bar area with communal wood-and-concrete and high-top tables or the main space, where the walls are clad in panels of crackle-painted paster and additional tinted mirrors that yield an infinity effect. Amidst a palette of deep colors, lighting becomes a primary design element—from the dining room’s dazzling arches and marquee-lit bar to the theater lights that lead visitors through the circulatory catwalk to custom tables set with turntable trays.