Great Croque Monsieur in the sunset – The Cock, Helsinki

When I’m traveling solo, like on my Baltic Explorer adventure, I sometimes pick a restaurant from Tripadvisor or guidebooks, but most of the time by walking around and finding one I like. The Cock, a self-described “eatery, rotisserie and bar”, was one of the latter. Two places I had looked up online were closed and I stumbled upon The Cock by accident. It turned out to be a nice accident.

HEL TheCock MapThe Cock is located just South of the market and harbour, the main tourist area. I wanted to avoid the touristy restaurants, as usually you pay more for less, and this was just a few short blocks away, but had mostly locals dining (judging by the languages around me). They have indoor seating as well as a few tables outside, looking over the Market Square, and – most importantly for me – facing the sunset! On a war summer night, it made for a perfect setting!

HEL TheCock FoodThe staff was friendly and quick to clean a table for me,  bring a menu and take my order. I have a few “benchmark” dishes I like to use to compare restaurants – and tonight I chose the “Croque Monsieur”: In the worst case scenario, it’s just a bad ham & cheese sandwich. In the best case scenario, it’s the kind of mouth-watering, finger-licking-good meal The Cock served. It came with thick slices of bread, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, deliciously melted cheese with the lean ham and some greens! It was one of the best Croque Monsieur I’ve ever had, better than some in Paris even! It came with nice potato fries with a little spice on the outside and some salad, making for the perfect size meal. I had a bottle of water (complementary, rare enough in Europe) and a glass of bubbly. with it. That was the only disappointment of the meal. It was a few drops of sparkling wine in a water glass at an outrageous price. While the glass looked “cool”, there is a reason champagne is served in flutes – it’s all about the bubbles! It was too warm, was flat too soon and overpriced. I’d recommend a beer instead…

When I ordered, I felt bad for not tasting the chicken at a rotisserie, but after eating my meal, I was a very happy camper. Good food, friendly service and a nice place in the setting sun – I highly recommend it! Surprisingly, The Cock has very mixed reviews on Tripadvisor, which is part of why I rarely use it for restaurants: Meals seem to be a lot more subjective than hotel rooms, so I’d suggest to go find out yourself and give it a try. I loved it…


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *