Coq D’Argent

A French hand at the City pass

The Dover sole reaches the pan whole, its timing held at the pass by Damien Rigollet, Chef at Coq D’Argent in the City of London. His route to that station has been unusually continuous. He trained at Chambre de Commerce de Versailles, then worked as Sous Chef at Le Boudin Blanc Restaurant from 2004 to 2005, before joining this kitchen as Senior Sous Chef from 2005 to 2011. He became Executive Sous Chef from 2011 to 2014, then Head Chef of Coq D’Argent restaurant in 2014, and Executive Head Chef in 2018. That span matters here because the restaurant asks for fluency in two tempos at once: classical French cooking with enough polish for formal service, and the pace of a large City dining room where seafood, tartares, grilled fish and terrace orders can all press the pass at the same time. Rigollet’s cooking keeps its French grammar visible, but he does not freeze it. Poulpe brings teriyaki-glazed octopus with houmous, confit lemon, chorizo and chickpea salad. Thon Rouge sets grilled yellowfin tuna against aubergine caponata, mango and chilli salsa. The line is classical technique, loosened by sharper accents.

Seafood, tartare and the modern French plate

The menu works through recognisable French forms rather than a single tasting sequence: à la carte, set menu, shellfish, grilled fish, meat and the cold discipline of tartare. Pan-fried Dover sole sits beside steak tartare, a Comté cheese tart, and a seafood platter of oysters, prawns, langoustines and crab. Those dishes require a kitchen that can move from heat to knife work without letting the plate lose its shape. In Rigollet’s repertoire, the octopus dish depends on contrast, sweet glaze against smoke, confit lemon against chickpea, tenderness against the firmer chew of chorizo. The tuna plate does different work. It keeps the fish as the clean centre, with caponata giving warmth and the mango and chilli salsa cutting across it. Meat takes a darker register in glazed pork cheek with red wine, truffle mousseline and crispy pig’s ear. The pleasure is not in novelty; it is in the sequencing of texture, gloss, salt and lift. The wine program is curated, with Champagne and French cocktails part of the house rhythm, but the plate still sets the pace.

The rooftop room above Poultry

The room sits high in a pink and brown tower above Poultry, with the City gathered below and the skyline close enough to feel like part of service. St Paul’s Cathedral, the Bank of England and the newer towers enter the meal through the glass and the terraces. The restaurant is large in scale, but the rooftop softens it: four heated terraces, wisteria-draped seating, pockets of privacy cut into a lively evening crowd. Inside, greys and woods give the dining room its older City polish. Outside, the circular rooftop garden remains the gesture that fixed the place in London memory after its opening around 1997. When Coq D’Argent began, the surrounding skyline was a different one, with Tower 42 standing as the single major skyscraper in view. The restaurant has had to cook through the City’s change rather than simply admire it.

A Conran roof still in service

Coq D’Argent belongs to the Conran-era shift that brought design-led, evening dining into a district once better known for daytime business lunches and wine bars. It marked 25 years around 2022, and its current count of 3 awards belongs to this address, not to a borrowed history. Rigollet’s part in that story is practical continuity: the same house, the same pass, increasing responsibility over time. At Coq D’Argent, Damien Rigollet holds the line with the Dover sole in the pan and the Poulpe on the pass.