Fast Food, But Make It Fancy
February 2025
I remember the first time I ate a McGriddle. (No, I wasn’t stoned.)
It was 2003. I was in high school, and I was curious about damn near everything. So when McDonald’s launched a new breakfast sandwich — eggs, bacon, and American cheese betwixt two maple-flavored pancakes — naturally, I had to see this Frankenstein monster for myself.
To my surprise, it wasn’t bad. The McGriddle, in all of its wondrous, twisted glory — sweet and savory and squishy — was pretty good, actually.
As a chef, I don’t eat fast food a lot, but I respect it. It’s both delicious and influential. Everyone’s serving fancy versions of crunchwraps these days, or a smashburger homage to In-N-Out, or a riff on McDonald’s (Cochon Butcher in New Orleans has the “le pig mac”.) It seems that chefs everywhere have taken inspiration from fast food.
At Coeur, we’re no different. We have Fast Food February.
Last February, we ran a fast food-inspired menu without telling anybody. You probably didn’t notice. We served a beautiful poached cod filet in a parmesan brodo that had all the same flavor notes as a Filet-O-Fish. We ran a hen-of-the-woods tempura served with orange sauce as an ode to Panda Express, and an Animal Style tartare that was so damn tasty we had to keep it on the menu a little while longer. I don’t think anyone put together what we were doing.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, we were giggling our asses off.
This month, we’re bringing Fast Food February back, but this time we’re telling everybody. Each course of February’s tasting menu is inspired by a different fast food icon, and I’m thrilled to share it.
The first course takes inspiration from Sonic: a cherry limeade hamachi crudo. Roasted Washington cherries are transformed into a sweet & tangy vinaigrette, while the tuna itself receives a lime and chili cure. It’s far less sweet than an actual Sonic cherry limeade but it’s a delightfully fresh and flavorful first course.
Second is a duck fat-poached potato cake with spinach and homemade Chik-Fil-A sauce. During Covid lockdown, my wife sensed that I was going stir crazy and tasked me with figuring out how to make Chik-Fil-A sauce from scratch. After weeks of tinkering with the alchemy, I think I finally nailed the proportions. Naturally, this course is a nod to their iconic waffle fries.
We also give KFC its flowers with chicken roulade, a duck fat biscuit, and an Espelette gravy. The final savory course is just a bit unhinged, but hear me out: Big Mac Brussels sprouts, AKA McSprouts. Charred Brussels sprouts, “special” sauce, steak haché (freshly minced beef cooked like a steak), and a blanket of Hook’s three-year aged cheddar. Hell yes. To close, our extremely talented pastry chef, Carla, serves her version of a Wendy’s Frosty & fries: milk chocolate semifreddo dark chocolate granité and a potato tuille.
I love a good mix of high and low brow, and so I hope you’ll join us in February for our silly, delicious, fast food-driven menu. It’s legitimately some of the most fun I’ve had in a kitchen, and I think it shows.
February is also Valentine’s Day, which falls on a Friday. We are no doubt going to be slammed. However, this year the Valentine’s Day menu is going to be served all week at Coeur (no fast food menu that week.) So take the pressure off, and come enjoy Valentine’s Day at your leisure on a day that doesn’t have to be that Friday.
Also, I'm super excited to announce that on March 9 I’ll be doing a collaboration with my friend Zach Berg of Monger’s Provisions. The two of us worked together at RN74 in San Francisco, a wonderful modern French restaurant that set the dining world on fire. It’s also the restaurant where Zach and I met.
Zach is going to step into the Coeur kitchen and we’re running back dishes from that iconic RN74 menu: tempura mushrooms, chicken crowns, a foie gras terrine, beef two ways, and more. Real old-school French stuff that Zach and I cooked years ago. A sort of ode to our friendship, but also to our San Francisco restaurant roots. I love getting together with other chefs, and even more so with friends who go way back.
This is always what I imagined the restaurant being: a fun, impassioned creative space for collaboration and ideas. A restaurant to enjoy a romantic dinner, but also to say, “Screw it — let’s get the fast food tasting menu.”
This month the heart of Coeur is on full display. It’s enthusiastic, passionate, playful, and I hope you’ll come through to see and taste it.
With 💜,
Jordan Smith