New York just got goopier.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Kitchen is built for a Los Angeles crowd. It is health-pilled, vegetable-forward, and full of avocado. Indeed, the shop opened nine locations in LA and four more in the Bay Area, ripe for biohacking tech bros.
In April, Goop Kitchen officially hopped coasts. The brand opened a ghost kitchen in Midtown Manhattan, ready for pickup and takeout.
It’s a big bet for Paltrow, whose business has faltered from its late 2010s peak. Goop underwent multiple rounds of layoffs, executive turnover, and business shutdowns. The brand began as a hub for articles about trendy health solutions; by now, the editorial product has been slashed.
Goop Kitchen has been a bright spot for the brand, though it’s technically a separate business that was set up as a joint venture. In 2024, Goop Kitchen raised $15 million, according to PitchBook, from investors including Uber cofounder Travis Kalanick, who also leads the ghost kitchen startup CloudKitchens.
The New York launch has been filled with hype, fueled by food influencers who score millions of views by promising that the Goop pizza is very good. Will it live up to expectations? We investigated the best way we know how: by spending almost $100 on lunch for two.
Goop Kitchen did not respond to a request for comment.
We arrived at a ghost kitchen to pick up the order.
Retail reporter Jordan Hart trekked from New York City’s Financial District to the Midtown neighborhood to pick up our order.
The only marker that she was in the right place was a sign reading “goop kitchen” with an arrow pointing left. It wasn’t the pilates studio-esque vibe we were expecting. It was a ghost kitchen out of which many restaurants operated.
The interior had lockers dedicated to picking up orders.
We placed the order through Goop Kitchen’s website. Since our office is outside the delivery radius, we ordered it for pickup.
When we tried ordering around noon on a Wednesday, the site said the location was experiencing high demand, so the earliest pickup time was about two hours later.
At the pickup spot, a line of people, including delivery workers, waited for orders to appear in lockers. Jordan asked an attendant for help, and he came back quickly with her order — no need to use the locker.
The whole process took less than 10 minutes, and she was on her way back to the office with the goods.
We ordered five items off the menu for $95.
The Goop Kitchen menu was more extensive than expected, but we settled on five items that were getting a lot of buzz on social media. We wanted to see if they were worth the hype they’ve been getting from influencers in LA.
We got the Pepperoni Potts pizza, the Brentwood Chinese chicken salad, the chicken teriyaki bowl, the curry chicken salad summer rolls, and a brownie. Our total came to $95.18.
The pizza got messy during transit.
Although the items were packed as well as possible, the Pepperoni Potts pizza was no match for the 4 train. Some of the slices didn’t look as presentable as the rest of the pie by the time they got back to Business Insider’s office.
The pizza was made with pepperoni, basil, pomodoro sauce, fresh mozzarella, and fontina cheese. The Goop Kitchen says it’s free of seed oils, preservatives, peanuts, refined sugar, gluten, and corn. It was $24.50.
The Pepperoni Potts pizza is great for gluten-avoiders.
Jordan was overall impressed by the pizza’s taste. This pizza made her think maybe she could give the gluten-free lifestyle a shot. The crust had a satisfying chew, and it made her wonder what all the fuss against gluten-free dough is about.
Business reporter Henry Chandonnet was less positive, calling it “gourmet DiGiorno.” There’s so much good pizza in New York, including gluten-free slices. Gwyneth’s slice seemed to sink under the competition.
The Brentwood Chinese chicken salad was packed with vegetables.
The star of the $18.50 Brentwood Chinese chicken salad is the hand-pulled organic chicken. It sits atop a bed of greenery, including bok choy, snowpeas, green onions, cabbage, avocado, and cilantro. It came with a carrot-ginger dressing and crispy wontons for added crunch.
Henry shook up the salad — and thought it was solid.
Henry liked the salad. It was clean, easy, and colorful. He could imagine it as a delightful workday lunch.
The carrot-ginger dressing reminded Jordan of one you’d get at a Japanese barbecue restaurant. The salad was a nice, refreshing bite, but Jordan wasn’t a fan of its raw cabbage. The cilantro, however, was a delicious pop of flavor for her. She found herself searching for it in each bite.
The teriyaki bowl was customizable.
The teriyaki bowl comes with a choice of chicken breast, chicken thigh, tofu, or salmon for an extra $4.75. We chose the chicken thigh option for a total of $18.95. The bowl included sesame marinated kale, a brown rice blend, avocado, pickled ginger, and broccoli. Our bowl was inexplicably missing broccoli.
As a kale skeptic, Jordan was pleasantly surprised by how much she enjoyed it. Dousing everything in the teriyaki sauce served on the side felt like a cheat code, making everything taste salty-sweet — her favorite flavor combo. The chicken was juicy and tender. The avocado seemed frivolous at first, but it blended well with the other ingredients.
Again, Henry was less enthused. The chicken was good, sure, but it reminded him of the Whole Foods hot bar.
The summer rolls had a clever twist.
These summer rolls were made with curry chicken salad, collard greens, sprouts, carrots, and watermelon radish for $14.95. They came with a pineapple-mango chutney for dipping.
It’s unclear if Goop Kitchen did this on purpose, but the vibrant colors of the radish and carrot garnish on the summer rolls reminded us of salmon and tuna rolls. It was a clever touch.
Henry loved the presentation, but found the summer rolls lackluster. The pineapple-mango chutney was too sweet, and the rolls were missing a crunchy element. He thought it felt like eating rolled-up mush.
Jordan thought the curry chicken salad needed more salt, and the curry flavor was a bit too subtle for her taste. She’s used to curry having a bold impact on any dish it’s added to. The chutney was her least favorite sauce; it had a flavor note she didn’t enjoy.
The brownie got mixed reviews.
The dark chocolate and sea salt brownie is gluten- and dairy-free, and it tastes like it. It’s missing all of the fun ingredients that make a brownie decadent and delicious. For $5.95, it wasn’t very big, but the richness of the dark chocolate made it shareable. It’s hard to imagine one person could handle that much chocolate.
We weren’t impressed. Henry thought it was dry and crumbly, taking all the moisture out of his mouth. The sea salt was a nice touch, though.
Our coworker Ana Altchek enjoyed it.
It was an expensive and filling lunch.
We wouldn’t regularly spend $100 on lunch, and this meal didn’t inspire us to do so more often. On an individual level, paying $19 for a salad isn’t outside the norm in New York City. Most fast-casual places offer the same price point on their lunch menus.
Jordan’s favorite dish was the chicken teriyaki bowl, and her least favorite was the curry chicken salad summer rolls. Henry’s favorite was the Chinese chicken salad, and his least favorite was the brownie.
Neither of us plans to hike up to Midtown for more Goop Kitchen. But, if we worked nearby and needed a quick fix, we’d consider it.
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