About Cote Korean Steakhouse
There are restaurants that earn a Michelin star by demanding your complete attention. Cote Korean Steakhouse earned its star by refusing to let you be serious for too long. Simon Kim opened his Flatiron room in 2017 with a concept that should not work on paper — Korean barbecue blended with the American chophouse — and produced one of the most genuinely pleasurable dining experiences in New York. The proof is in the continuing impossibility of getting a reservation.
The room is dark and clubby, the booths lined in leather, each table inlaid with a cast-iron grill glowing red with charcoal. The walls carry blown-up photographic murals of raw beef textures. There is a wine aging room lined with bottles that illuminates in wine-red light. The subterranean bar, Undercote, operates below street level as one of the most interesting cocktail programs in the Flatiron. None of this is accidental design — it is a coherent vision of how eating at this standard should feel.
The Butcher's Feast is the canonical way to eat here: $98 per person, four prime cuts selected by the kitchen, served with egg soufflé, banchan of fermented vegetables, scallion salad, and a cold soba course. First-timers should order nothing else. Veterans know to add the wagyu beef rib and the cold noodles. The kitchen grades its own beef — wagyu and prime USDA cuts hang in the aging room behind glass, visible from the dining room — and the result is beef with a depth of flavour that straightforward steakhouses rarely match.
The wine program is one of the most eclectic in New York: 1,200 labels ranging from classified Bordeaux to obscure Georgian amphora wines, all selected with the understanding that beef and wine form a conversation, not a formula. The sommelier team treats this list as a living document and will steer you somewhere unexpected if you allow them to.
