Cocotte
Monday, April 22, 2013 at 04:21PM 
What a wonderful time it is to be a Francophile in New York, with little French bistros and cafés opening all over town. I thought Frank Bruni told us that France was dead?
Welcome to Cocotte (“little casserole”), a delightful little Soho spot that opened last October. It’s a little slip of a space—”the size of a studio apartment“—seating just 35.
The dining room is a few steps down from sidewalk level, decorated in dark gray, with the menu written in chalk on the blackboard-colored walls. There’s a tiny bar and an even tinier counter in the kitchen that accommodates all of two guests at a time.
The chef, Sébastien Pourrat, serves tapas-style cuisine from the Southwest of France, near Basque country. It feels like half-French, half-Spanish.
There are about 25 items on the menu, priced $7–16, in eight categories (including desserts). Most are suitable for sharing (maybe not the soups). A terrific-looking bacon & Basque cheeseburger ($12), which we didn’t try, seems to be the only bail-out dish.
