Celebrating ten years of rotisserie chicken, Cocotte has a new executive chef and a refreshed menu. But can Santo Pate breathe new life into the French-inspired favourite? We went along for the eggs, stayed for the chicken and left in need of a lie-down.

We’ve all been to restaurants that specialise in chicken, whether it’s the type run by the Colonel, the Portuguese rooster, or the ridiculously cheap kind at the end of your road run by the self-proclaimed ‘bossman’. But how do you make a chicken dinner worth putting on proper trousers for when a takeaway is only a few taps away?

Enter Cocotte, the French-inspired rotisserie restaurant celebrating its tenth anniversary this September. With five London sites, it has spent a decade making a case for chicken as something more than a last-minute dinner decision. But ten years is a long time in the restaurant industry, and even a good thing can get a little tired. Cocotte is hoping a new chef might be just the thing to get people clucking again.

Santo Pate has recently taken over as Executive Chef across all five restaurants, bringing experience from Michelin-starred kitchens and senior roles at Chotto Matte and Norma. His brief is to bring a renewed focus on French flavours, seasonal produce and classic cooking, without losing what people already love about Cocotte. 

All well and good, but impressive CVs don’t count for much when you’re hungry. Time to see what’s cooking.

We kicked things off with Comté and rosemary croquettes, because there are few situations in life that aren’t improved by melted cheese in breadcrumb form. Alongside them came a heritage tomato salad, providing a welcome bit of freshness before we committed ourselves to a rather more indulgent afternoon.

The real star of the starters, though, was the Oeufs en cocotte. Essentially eggs baked in a little pot, it sounds simple enough, but this was anything but forgettable. Rich, comforting and gloriously garlicky, it was the sort of dish that makes you wonder why eggs aren’t more widely accepted as a perfectly reasonable dinner. It was seriously moreish, and I could quite happily have eaten another. Whether that would have been sensible, given what was coming next, is another matter entirely.

Naturally, at a restaurant dedicated to rotisserie chicken, ordering the chicken is hardly a daring move. We went for the half chicken, accompanied by a selection of sauces, including a tomato and sherry glaze. There’s something reassuring about a restaurant that knows what it does and doesn’t feel the need to turn every dish into a culinary science experiment. Chicken is chicken, after all, but a good roast bird with the right accompaniments can be a beautiful thing.

The sauces give you the chance to mix things up as you work your way through the meal, although by this point I was beginning to realise that my eyes had perhaps been bigger than my belly. Cocotte is generous with its portions, and between the croquettes, salad, eggs and half a chicken, I was heading towards the sort of fullness usually reserved for Christmas dinner.

One thing we couldn’t help noticing during our visit was the sheer number of takeaway deliveries coming through. We genuinely lost count. Clearly, Cocotte has found a place in people’s weekly routines, and I can see why. 

A rotisserie chicken with French-inspired sides and sauces is a rather appealing alternative to another greasy takeaway. It offers the sort of comforting dinner that feels a little more considered than the usual last-minute order, without turning a Tuesday night into a special occasion that requires booking three weeks in advance.

So, has a new chef changed the game? One visit isn’t enough to declare Cocotte completely reinvented, but there was plenty to enjoy, particularly those gloriously garlicky eggs. Santo Pate seems to understand that the restaurant doesn’t need to abandon its identity to keep things interesting. Sometimes, you just need to get the basics right and give people a reason to come back.

By the time I left, I was absolutely stuffed. Not the polite sort of full where you could probably manage a pudding if someone twisted your arm, but the sort where you need a little walk and several minutes to reconsider every decision that led you there. 

And yet, if I returned tomorrow, I’d order those Oeufs en cocotte all over again. I’d probably make a few more sensible decisions everywhere else, but I’m not making any promises.

Cocotte Shoreditch, 8-9 Hoxton Square, London. N1 6NU

And other London locations

mycocotte.co.uk