CLOSED/Coco Frio – Food: Wow! Ambiance: Needs Warming Up!

For the holidays, I thought I’d review a place or two that is maybe not as tried-and true, not quite so divey, but a little more refined, and yet still in the spirit of the local, the family run places. Coco Frio is Venezuelan Chef Manny Torres Gimenez and his wife’s third restaurant in San Francisco – fourth, if you count his pop-up at Roxy’s. Torres has cooked at star-powered restaurants around the City before, but when he decided to go out on his own, he took over the teensy Mr. Pollo, making pre-fix dinners at a bargain price. Rustic and yet with touches of elegance, his food had a following for those who weren’t looking for fine dining, exactly, but wanted something a little more nuanced than your typical Mission Latino flavors (and portion sizes).

After leaving Mr. Pollo, he moved into The Palace, the former run-down steakhouse from a bygone era at Cesar Chavez and Mission. I had a chance to eat at The Palace once, and while we found it pleasant, we were not wowed enough to go back. But you could tell Torres had a passion, and took loving care with his food. And, damn, he and his wife are hard workers.

Fast forward to Coco Frio, his newest place, which purports to be a more truly Venezuelan, seafood-heavy menu than what he’s served us before. Chef Torres opened Coco Frio in the old Savannah Jazz club and bar, seemingly overnight.

The interior of Coco Frio is somewhat true of its name: Frio. Cold. Sadly, a bit sterile. I understand that Chef Manny’s focus is the freshly sourced food and his passion for cooking, and that he opens restaurants on a shoestring, with his own sweat and blood, with no outside investors’ money. Thus, the spare, bare bones look of this restaurant. The ambiance is akin to eating in a hotel conference room, one of my friends noted – the space is vast and cavernous, and the mousy, 90s era, dusty-rose-colored walls only helped to accentuate the blah-ness of the room. The lighting was bad for pictures, but also bad for customers. As I walked in past the long, still ornate bar, I thought to myself, “The food had better be really good.”

And it was!

As the BF isn’t a seafood lover, a couple of girlfriends joined me for this meal, and each of us ordered the prix-fixe dinner, at $29 apiece. We also ordered three of the starters, so we’d each have something different to taste. Pictured above is the seafood “cocktail” – a lovely concoction of fresh shrimps and octopus (pulpo), served with sweet potato chips. Light and tangy, one of my friends said the pulpo was perfectly cooked, tender, and tasted like it might have been grilled before plating. The veggies on top seemed to have been marinated in lemon juice, like a ceviche. A very good, light dish.

We were also super intrigued with the drinks menu, and in particular the Chupacabra. Having recently fallen in love with Cole Valley’s Padrecito, and in particular its cocktail, La Copa Verde (mezcal, muddled cilantro, fresh lime juice, and chipotle powder), we were drawn like drunken flies to Coco Frio’s version: mezcal, cilantro, lime juice, and serrano chile. This drink was outstanding, even while missing out on the smokier notes of Padrecito’s chipotle version. The muddled cilantro was not as finely strained here, and the little green flecks added nice vegetal bites, with a clean heat from the serrano. My GF also ordered a rum drink – Papa Hemingway – basically, a Hemingway Daiquiri, she said – which I didn’t care for (not being a rum lover). She liked it, but was more enamored by my Chupacabra, so she got one too.

I also did the wine pairings, which, at $15.00 was a great deal. My favorite was a Kerner Stiftskellerei Neustift, similar to an Austrian Veltliner but actually from the TrentinoAlto Adige area of Italy. It went perfectly with my first two courses, a bit apple-y and with a crisp tartness.

My other friend ordered the ceviche, a properly delicious and fresh-tasting one, with a vibrant tigre de leche (the limey juice the seafood marinates in), with a wonderful smokiness to the mussels. Housemade chips on the side. A perfect few bites.

In fact, the portions are quite small; while I’d expect that of dishes on a tasting menu, the reverse is actually true here. Our three prix fixe courses were of a decent size, but the dishes we paid extra for were on the small side. Don’t get me wrong, we got enough food, but I can see how others might leave here hungry.

Unless you ordered some of these babies:

Arepas can be said to be one of the national dishes of Venezuela, as well as Colombia. The arepa is akin to a chubby flatbread, made with maize flour and griddled, and can be stuffed or topped. Coco Frio’s were topped with flavorful, fatty, chewy hunks of pork, veggies, and cheese, and were perfectly satisfying. To me they were a great example of taking something that is so rustic and commonly known, and elevating it, by having all the flavors and textures jump out at you, instead of being a muddled mess. And there were two!

Next came the first of our three-course meals. Our server told us that nothing is wasted at Coco Frio, and that today’s raw seafood intended for ceviche could well make it into the next evening’s fish soup.

Seafood soup. The broth was just beautiful – flavorful, complex, warm and savory… we sighed as we spooned it all in. There was plenty of seafood in each of our bowls – mussels, scallops, whole head-on shrimps, I believe some halibut too…. It seemed like a much lightened up version, though, of what I imagine a Venezuelan seafood soup might be, or a Caribbean one, as Chef Torres cites his cooking is highly influenced by the food of Margarita Island (off the coast of Venezuela). While I couldn’t really sense any Caribbean notes, this was delicious. We were, however, of differing opinions regarding the toppings: the raw red onion and yellow peppers added nice crunch and a good sharp contrast to the mellowness of the soup, but one of my friends thought the onion flavor too sharp, jarring, and that it distracted from the pleasures of the broth. Nevertheless, we all loved this course.

Second course, more fish:

Battered and fried, with a sauce that I can’t quite remember and forgot to note, over a bed of arugula I found the fish light, crispy and tender. I’m a fan of cod, but one of my friends isn’t, and she didn’t enjoy the dish as much as I did. It’s true, it was a very simple plate, but well prepared, I thought. Except, however, for a strange little side dish on the plate – a cup made of fried plantain (tostone), filled with pico de gallo. The tostone itself was rather tough.

Our final course was beef.

American style kobe – wow, beautifully tender beef, deeply flavored, a smallish piece, but it gave so much beefiness that that was all you needed (although I did, of course, eat my friend’s portion, who does not eat beef. Anything to help a pal). Served with fried yuca that I found a bit dry. But the steak was everything.

Dessert was mostly forgettable – a dulce de leche (condensed milk) soufflé, it was better in theory than in reality. It was much denser than a soufflé, and paired with unseasonal strawberries that derived their only sweetness from the puddle of dulce de leche they sat in. Meh.

We left saying that we mostly loved the food, but the restaurant just isn’t very comfortable. Unfortunately, ambiance can make or break a place, and if it didn’t quite break it here, it severely bruised it. Coco Frio feels like it’s trying to be fine dining, but not quite succeeding. The bathrooms are a case in point. I felt like I’d walked into a tanning booth, the lights were so glaringly bright and hot. Also, they’re unisex, and the first one I walked into had an uncovered urinal in addition to the toilet. Is that what I want to see in fine dining? Because, there actually is a second bathroom, with just a toilet. Call that one the Ladies’ Room. Call the first one the Men’s Room. Maybe they just hadn’t put up signs yet. And dim the lights. Please. These things matter.

And listen, I absolutely believe you can get transformational food from a dive, and that décor does not a tasty mouthful make. But this isn’t a dive, and the place has a chill to it. If you’re touting yourself as a South American/Caribbean restaurant, you need to warm up that Coco just a tad.