Here Is James Beard Award Finalist Tara Monsod’s Menu for Le Coq in La Jolla

Earlier this month, chef Tara Monsod attended the James Beard Awards gala in Chicago, where she represented San Diego as our city’s first finalist in the Best Chef: California category for her achievements at Animae. Though Monsod didn’t ultimately win the grand prize, she told Eater it was just thrilling to be able to connect and spend time with other chefs from around the country who have also been recognized for their part in spotlighting Filipino food and culture.

The 40-year-old chef has been working steadily since graduating from culinary school, cooking through local kitchens like Tender Greens, Burlap, and Juniper & Ivy, but the last few years of her career have been meteoric by any measure. Joining Animae in 2020, Monsod was promoted to lead the restaurant less than a year later, ushering in a reinvention era for the restaurant in which the chef continues to delight diners with her take on Asian dishes that include Filipino household staples — from kare kare to dinuguan — that have been elevated to the fine dining stage.

Matt Furman

Recognizing the rapidly rising star in their midst, Brian Malarkey and Christopher Puffer of the Puffer Malarkey Collective (Animae, Herb & Wood, Herb & Sea) have given Monsod the keys to the group’s next restaurant, Le Coq, which opens this Saturday, June 22 in downtown La Jolla.

Positioning itself as a “new wave French steakhouse”, the restaurant’s menu of modern French cuisine intersects with SoCal sourcing and the Asian flavors that have influenced the post-bistronomy movement in Paris.

While doing research in Paris, the chef staged at Les Enfants du Marché, a cozy wine counter in the Marché des Enfants Rouges, and with the restaurant’s permission has borrowed one of its most popular dishes — a land and sea combo of mussels in a blue cheese sauce.

Another dish, a local yellowtail crudo, is a nod to a recipe Monsod learned at Herringbone, the Malarkey restaurant that previously occupied this 7,500-square-foot space where she had one of her first professional cooking jobs.

French classics like chicken liver mousse, sweetbreads, and bavette steak with peppercorn sauce make their appearance with many of the proteins sourced locally; the headcheese uses pasture-raised pork from Ramona’s Thompson Heritage Ranch and a brined, air-dried, and roasted half-chicken that comes to the table foot and all features pasture birds from Land & Feast in Valley Center when possible.

Monsod’s affinity for Asian flavors shows up in subtle ways, from the play on duck l’orange that pairs duck breast with kumquat marmalade, tamarind puree, and chicory to the wakame seaweed that subs for spinach in a creamy side dish that can be ordered with a dry-aged ribeye or any cut of meat.

After overseeing Le Coq’s opening, the chef says she’ll split her time between Animae and the La Jolla restaurant, where she’s supported by teams that include colleagues she’s known since her time at Tender Greens.

Le Coq Dinner Menu

Le Coq, 7837 Herschel Avenue, La Jolla. Dining Room: Sunday to Thursday 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Bar: Sunday to Thursday 5 p.m. to 12 a.m., Friday and Saturday 5 p.m. to 1 a.m.