James Beard Finalist Tara Monsod Debuts “Date Night” at Le Coq

This room’s got a history and a new future. You can feel both pretty quick.

Le Coq is, technically, a Parisian steakhouse—the grand final creation from one of San Diego’s most notable restaurant groups, Puffer Malarkey.

Enter by the fireplace—shaped like a white-hot flame or a tall wisp of smoke. The roof is retractable, letting in that famed La Jolla ocean air. Lit candles line the marble bar, the light doing Liberace dazzle on crystal bottles. In the dining room, ’60s and ’70s clippings from French magazines add the right kind of libido to the walls. Chairs are velveteen cheetah print. And, of course, there are chandeliers. You can’t Parise without chandeliers. Below, some light jungle foliage and plush booths that are good for both secrets and the kind of good times that have no interest in volume control. 

Mood is a specialty—it has been of every place Chris Puffer and chef Brian Malarkey have created since they landed Herb & Wood in San Diego in 2013. Le Coq’s mood is the je nais se qua of Paris after dark, where it feels right to lean a little closer to your date or whomever’s game. In the kitchen is James Beard finalist Tara Monsod, who cut her teeth in this 1930s building (a former Oldsmobile dealership) back when it was Herringbone—where a young Puffer and Malarkey were starting to make their dent in the local restaurant world. 

After her Herringbone shifts, a younger Monsod would grab a pizza to-go, meet her partner outside, and amble over to the cove. “Working long hours, we fit in date night whenever we could,” she remembers.

Now she’s got national acclaim, has spent years earning that acclaim, and as such, she runs Le Coq as an elaborate show where you can have a very significant night out. But she wanted to create a little side world here—an approachable, date-friendly menu for people like her young cook self.

The result is Le Coq’s new three-course Date Night menu, designed for two, just in time for cozy season. A James Beard–caliber dinner at an un-Beardy, local-bistro price: $98 all-in. 

“Everyone deserves to dine this way,” she says. “We recognize this is a special occasion establishment, and we are here to make your night feel special.”

The menu is a classic steak dinner, tweaked with nods to Monsod’s own culture and life as a cook. She grew up in LA eating her family’s Filipino food, while also sampling the city’s massive restaurant culture—from hole-in-the-wall to corner stall to fine dining, tacos to noodles to Jewish food on Sundays. That culture- and flavor-hopping has been one of her calling cards.

First course of Date Night is salmon rillette, a spread served with house-baked, pull-apart bing bread (Chinese flatbread) that’s brought to your table oven-warm so the rillette melts into it. Then surf and turf—an expertly sliced Denver cut of Snake River Farms Wagyu next to flambéed giant prawns with hand-whisked aioli and sprinkled with sea grass and chiles. Naturally, there’s pomme purée and haricots verts on the side, and “a lot of frickin’ butter,” Monsod adds. 

Those Asian touches that she’s known for at Animae (which earned her two James Beard nominations) also take stage at Le Coq: Over flames in the kitchen, Monsod glazes the prawns with juice from yuzu—the tart, aromatic East Asian fruit that adds an pretty electric, not-usual citrus note. And the bing (which you don’t see on many menus) is a layered, fluffy wheat-flour round of Chinese flatbread.  

Charged with pairing drinks, Lucien Conner—long one of San Diego’s best bar minds, now Puffer Malarkey director of opps—recommends the martini à la Le Coq. It has to be one of the few martinis on the planet to be made with créme fraîche, plus basil and hazelnut to add warmth to the traditional blanc vermouth. For the steak, he’ll bring out the Italian Barbera. Prawns get a Chateaux Roquefort sauvignon blanc. 

Dessert comes with a surprise finale (we won’t give it away, but a hint: It’s a nightly indulgence Parisians expect in any self-respecting French steakhouse). Then a little French chocolate mousse jazzed up with cocoa bitters, scooped into a quenelle (a petite, sophisticated food football) by chef de cuisine Derek Feldman. It’s topped with créme fraîche, housemade fish sauce caramel, and candy cacao nibs, then drizzled with tangerine agrumato Two spoons. 

As for the experience, Le Coq is a two-part production. Start with the mellow, intimate dinner with those candles and French mag clippings and dangling crystal. Then stay for the after-hours DJ (check Instagram for artists and dates), move your ass a little, hit the bar. “The night starts off romantic and intimate, then transitions to a fun DJ,” Monsod says. “You can get fancy and then take it as far as you want to go.”

For Monsod, the Date Night menu is both a core memory and a way she can bring more people to her table. 

“Almost 15 years later, I’m back in this refreshed space, in the same building, keeping that memory going,” she says. “Dining out is a privilege. We respect that our guests are choosing to spend money to come here, so we work hard to show everyone hospitality.”