Sweetfin added cooked tri-tip steak, salmon and roasted chicken and tofu to develop warm bowls for the menu. | Photos by Jakob Layman, courtesy of Sweetfin
Fast-casual Sweetfin launched 10 years ago in Los Angeles, staking its claim as the first poké concept outside of Hawaii.
“Our restaurants have always operated as scratch kitchens. That means breaking down proteins and over 30 kinds of produce, making sauces and pickling vegetables. That differentiated us from the beginning,” said Sweetfin co-founder Seth Cohen.
All of Sweetfin’s 15 units are located in California, and the menu has always gone in a California-Asian direction. “We like to say, we’re a California concept with a lot of Asian influence,” said Cohen.
But in the last 10 years, fast-casual poké bowl chains have multiplied in name and number, and there now may be a limit to Americans’ appetite for raw fish.
“We talked to our guests and they said the same thing over and over again: ‘We love Sweetfin, we love the flavors and how fresh it is, but we don’t always want to eat raw—and the people we’re with don’t either.’ So we took the familiar flavors of Sweetfin and wove them into new menu items that feature cooked proteins,” said Cohen.
A chef-driven menu has always been key to the concept as well, starting with chef Dakota Weiss who developed the original bowls. “We had to make sure the menu expansion made sense from a culinary standpoint so we brought on another great chef to expand it,” said Cohen.
That chef is Daniel Patterson, a fine-dining culinary innovator with Michelin stars to his name. He collaborated with Sweetfin to develop several warm bowls featuring cooked salmon, roasted chicken and tri-tip steak.
Going from raw to cooked
“Daniel is an extremely accomplished chef, but as important to us is that his style is very vegetable- and grain-forward. The goal was to create menu items that were both satisfying and healthy,” said Cohen.
The Miso-Roasted Salmon bowl is a good example, he noted. There’s brown rice as the base and a slaw composed of red cabbage, fennel and shaved radish mixed with a sesame-ginger vinaigrette. It’s rounded out with house-made pickled carrots, edamame, avocado and broiled miso eggplant—the eggplant a new SKU. The miso-roasted salmon goes on top and then there’s a crunchy component: a spiced nut mix with almonds, cashews, sesame seeds and sunflower seeds. Japanese togarashi adds another layer of flavor.
Sweetfin’s warm Miso-Roasted Salmon Bowl.
“The dish has warm elements, cold elements, crunchy and savory,” said Cohen. “It’s well balanced and something to keep coming back for.”
Going from raw to cooked proteins required equipment additions at the restaurants. Sweetfin brought in combi ovens and warmers to accommodate the menu expansion. For the new Steak and Japanese Sweet Potato Bowl, for example, the tri-tip steak is cooked sous vide for five hours, then seared in a cast iron pan in the combi oven for three minutes on each side. The meat is cooked perfectly every time, said Cohen. It’s joined by roasted Japanese sweet potato (another new SKU), pickled red onion, scallions, arugula and quinoa; an Asian-accented steak sauce ties it all together.
A third warm bowl is the Spicy Chicken Bowl. It starts with a 5-ounce boneless chicken breast sourced from Petaluma Farms, a premier poultry producer in Northern California. It’s paired with a base of white rice, roasted broccoli, sesame-ginger slaw, the crunchy seed and nut mix, cilantro, scallions and gochujang sauce.
A crunchy spiced mix of almonds, cashews, sesame seeds and sunflower seeds is sprinkled on several of the new dishes.
Like the chicken bowl, each of the new items answers consumers’ demand for protein. Steak, salmon and roasted, marinated tofu—a vegetarian protein option—weigh in at 4 ounces apiece.
There’s also a new Herby Grain Bowl that offers more customization. It’s composed of avocado, roasted vegetable medley, herb sauce, pickled carrots and onions, the crunchy seed and nut mix and sesame tahini dressing over red quinoa, chickpeas and brown rice. The chickpeas and grains are inherently protein-rich but guests can add chicken, tofu, steak or salmon for more of a protein boost.
Prices for the warm bowls range from $16.95 to $18.95 and protein add-ons are $2 to $4 extra.
Complex flavor profiles with less operational complexity
A few new SKUs were added to create the warm bowls but a lot of the ingredients were cross-utilized from what was already in Sweetfin’s supply chain. “Produce including cabbage, cucumber, edamame, radish, carrots, jicama and more we were able to cross-utilize,” said Cohen. “Cross-utilization made our pantry less complex and we actually shrunk the menu by about 35%.”
The updated menu launched in January. | Photo courtesy of Sweetfin
Patterson developed about four or five new sauces and dressings, but about four or five previous ones were eliminated, so that was a wash.
Going from raw to cooked involved a significant amount of R&D, and not everything worked out. “There’s a Japanese chicken meatball called ‘tsukune’ that we tested, thinking it could be another option,” said Cohen. “And while it was delicious, I didn’t feel it would connect with the customers, so we decided to pass on that.”
Patterson also prepared a shiitake mushroom and chicken stew that resembled congee. “It was also delicious, but I don’t think it really fit into Southern California cuisine, which is a lot lighter,” he added.
Sweetfin’s menu update included more than warm bowls; salads were also part of the revamp. There’s a Crispy Rice Salad, Seaweed and Cucumber Salad with avocado and Sesame-Ginger Chopped Salad with tahini-sesame-ginger dressing. The latter isn’t selling as well as expected, so the dressing is being modified. “I think we’ll call it a miso Caesar instead so it’s more familiar sounding,” said Cohen.
Sweetfin’s new menu is not going to disappoint its diehard poké fans. Six Signature Poké Bowls are still available and guests can also build their own. But feedback on the warm bowls and cooked proteins and vegetables has been really positive, said Cohen.
