Fast-casual restaurants seem to be crawling with cameos these days. Taylor Gourmet has featured hoagies from the likes of José Andrés and Daikaya chef Katsuya Fukushima. Shake Shack offered burgers from Maketto chef Erik Bruner-Yang and Today show co-host Al Roker. And G by Mike Isabella has a constant rotation of sandwiches from fellow local chefs, and more recently, food writers.
Now Sweetgreen is introducing its first DC-specific chef collaboration. Bruner-Yang—he’s everywhere!—has assembled a salad that will be available at all Washington shops from November 3 through January 4.
The Maketto Dinner Bowl, as it’s called, sadly won’t feature the H Street restaurant’s famous fried chicken. (After all, Sweetgreen won’t even serve Sriracha and bacon as part of its health campaign.) Instead, the $10.60 salad consists of roasted chicken, sesame-roasted tofu, wild rice, ginger cabbage slaw, cilantro, basil, mint, cucumbers, cashews, chili-tamarind dressing, and a lime squeeze. The flavors are inspired by a trip that Bruner-Yang took to the Yunnan province in southwest China.
In the past, Sweetgreen has also teamed up with chef Dan Barber in New York and Sqirl chef Jessica Koslow in Los Angeles to serve limited-edition salads. And last year, Kendrick Lamar, who performed at Sweetgreen’s Sweetlife festival, created a top-selling salad called “Beets Don’t Kale My Vibe.”
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind D.C.’s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.
