While Angelenos have been noshing on Goop Kitchen meals for about five years now, Gwyneth Paltrow’s fast-casual, healthy to-go food concept has finally hit the Big Apple. The Oscar-winner serves as Goop Kitchen’s co-founder and creative director, and the first East Coast outpost of Goop Kitchen opened in Midtown West this April.
Operating out of ghost kitchens, the take-out only location offers pickup and delivery (within a one to three mile radius) via the goop Kitchen App and third-party platforms like DoorDash and Uber Easts.
Additional locations of Goop Kitchen are slated to open across the city by the end of this year, including the Flatiron District, the Upper East Side, and Williamsburg. With 11 locations in Los Angeles, and three locations in the Bay Area, it was just a matter of time (and working out a lot of logistics) until Goop Kitchen could branch out to New York City.
The idea behind Goop Kitchen revolves around “thoughtfully-sourced ingredients and chef-driven menus” free from gluten, refined sugars, seed oils, corn, peanuts, preservatives, and other processed ingredients. All are designed primarily for delivery and takeout. But, rather than the standard build-your-own format, each menu item, which often goes through many iterations before making it onto the menu at all, is created with ingredients and delivery in mind.
Items were also designed for travel, and the company claimed each dish was “specifically developed and tasted to hold up in real world conditions.” To do this, the test kitchen chefs would wait 45 minutes before tasting new menu items to mimic realistic delivery times. From there, the packaging was created in order to “preserve texture and temperature from kitchen to doorstep.”
Chef Kim Floresca, the vice president of culinary at Goop Kitchen (and formerly of El Bulli in Spain and Per Se in NYC ) said she had New Yorkers in mind when ideating the menu.
“Bringing goop kitchen to New York is an exciting milestone for us, especially in a city that defines so much of today’s food culture,” Floresca said. “We’ve built our menu around high-quality, thoughtfully sourced ingredients, and we’re thrilled to introduce our take on flavorful food to New Yorkers.”
So what’s on the menu? While there are some exclusive items to NYC most of the California favorites are on the lengthy menu which spans over 40 options. Think a half or whole rotisserie chicken to salads to pastas and pizzas to veggie sides and desserts.
Some of the spring menu highlights include a Spring Crunch Salad with asparagus, goat cheese, snap peas, cucumbers, pickled red onions, mint, superseded crunchies, and a side of dressing for $16.95; Spring Salmon Bowl with organic brown rice, spring asparagus, artichokes, grilled red onions, carrots, kale, spinach, and arugula, topped with everything bagel seasoning, and a side of pesto vinaigrette for $19.95; and Blueberry Lemon Olive Oil Cake with maple cream cheese frosting for $9.95. The Brentwood Chinese Chicken Salad (organic chicken, bok choy, snowpeas, green onion, cabbage, avocado, sesame seed, watermelon radish, cilantro, grain-free “wontons” and a carrot-ginger vinaigrette dressing) was a hit in L.A. and may prove to be here too.
Some Goop Kitchen offerings make sense for East Coasters too, like the salads, garlic-roasted Japanese sweet potatoes, chef Kim’s “magical” mineral broth, and the dark chocolate sea salt brownie. There’s also a Waldorf-inspired chicken salad wrap, paying homage to the classic locally-created apple and walnut combo. Other menu items make slightly less sense, such as the array of pizzas including the Pepperoni Potts and a Goopfellas pizza made with spicy, no-vodka sauce. After all, we are in a city known for top-notch pies and slices on almost every corner.
Still, Goop’s team tested more than 200 types of pepperoni before selecting one that met the standards, and New Yorkers came out in droves to try Goop Kitchen when it opened. With the imminent expansion, the California way of eating trend has officially hit NYC and we have Paltrow and Goop Kitchen to thank.
Goop Kitchen is open from 10 a.m. until 9 p.m. daily, with pick-up and delivery options only. 245 W. 46th St., Midtown, goopkitchen.com
