[CLOSED] Coquille Restaurant

Coquille Restaurant, a sister restaurant of L’Abattoir, took over the corner of the Secret Location Restaurant and opened its door in 2018. Located at the heart of Gastown, Coquille focuses on quintessential seafood and shellfish dishes. This year, it joins the Dine Out Vancouver and offers an extensive menu for locals and visitors to try. And recently, I won a giveaway of a $100 gift card for Coquille from Tourism Vancouver. Therefore, we decided to visit this restaurant to enjoy our first ever dine out of the year.

Coquille has a simple and elegant storefront, with a historic flavor from the lights in Gastown. It is a spacious restaurant, with comfortable seating and a bar, where diners can enjoy a sip or two. Although it is a high-end restaurant, it has a rather relaxing ambiance, with an aesthetic view of Gastown surrounding the restaurant.

Though Coquille is only serving the dine out menu during the festival, we were amazed by the wide selection of appetizers (including oysters), entrees, and desserts that we can choose from. Unfortunately, the overall dining experience was quite disappointing, due to the quality of the seafood and the dish itself.

For the appetizers, we chose Mussels Steamed with Cider and Coquille Ceviche.

Coquille Ceviche features whitefish, shrimp, and octopus, with a garnish of citrus and red onion to elevate the dish’s flavor. It also pairs with some chips on the side to balance the acidic flavor. I usually love how refreshing ceviche is, with the hint of acidity. However, this dish was not my cup of tea. The citrus flavor was overpowering the dish, and I couldn’t taste the freshness from the seafood. It was very sour that I had to put down my spoon and stop eating. Mussels on the other hand was a warm and hearty dish, but the mussels were fishy and overcooked.

As for the entrees, we decided to Roast Scallops and Bouillabaisse.

Due to the strong acidity from the appetizer, I stuck with a soup-based entree, bouillabaisse. This dish features fish, shrimp, scallops, clams, and mussels, with crouton rouille. For both of the entrees, the scallops were undercooked, with a cold and raw center. The chef remade the dishes for us, and the squash gnocchi was quite delightful. Unfortunately for the bouillabaisse, as there were a lot of elements on the plate, not all ingredients were cooked perfectly. Though the shellfish was cooked perfectly this time, the fishiness remained. The fish was overcooked as well. The stew was seasoned perfectly, and I really like the shrimp and the crouton.

Lastly, we chose Baked Rice Pudding and Soft Serve Sundae for our desserts.

For the sundae, diners may choose among vanilla, strawberry, or swirl for the soft serve, with a choice of brownie and hot fudge or strawberries and jasmine shortbread. I liked the rice pudding, as it was subtle and not too sweet, just perfect for me. The sundae was not too special, but I really like the simple garnish of jasmine shortbread crumbles.

Overall Impression

I was quite disappointed with my first dine out at Coquille Restaurant this year. As a high-end seafood restaurant, I would expect all ingredients (at least the seafood) are fresh and prepared perfectly. Unfortunately, we could not agree to that. They gave us a coupon for BOGO entree for lunch or dinner, so maybe I might return to try again when the regular service resumes.

Taste : 2.5/5 • Service: 3.5/5 • Ambiance: 4.5/5 • Quality-Price: 2.5/5