Sweetgreen’s New Menu Offers a Taste of a Michelin-Starred Korean Steakhouse
The salad and bowl chain’s latest collaboration is with the highly-acclaimed COTE.
Photo courtesy of Sweetgreen
Your fancy desk lunch just got a little fancier. Sweetgreen — which, in the past, has partnered with culinary heavyweights like David Chang, Dan Barber and Nancy Silverton — is launching another collaboration, this time with the only Korean steakhouse in America ever to receive a Michelin star.
The new “KBBQ” menu is a collaboration with Manhattan’s COTE Korean Steakhouse, which opened in 2017 and quickly garnered itself a Michelin star, along with a “Best New Restaurant” accolade from the James Beard Foundation. COTE has since opened additional locations in Miami (also Michelin-starred) and Singapore, and is coming soon to Las Vegas. The original location gained notoriety for dry-aging all of its meat in-house — the only Korean steakhouse in New York City to do so — while the Miami location hosts its own vegetable fermentation lab.
Photo courtesy of Sweetgreen
Sadly, no, you won’t be cooking your own steak on a personal tabletop grill as you might at COTE. But the Sweetgreen version attempts to mimic the flavors of Korean barbecue in the chain’s familiar bowl, salad and plate offerings. In each, grass-fed steak (or vegetarian option sweet potato) is glazed in KBBQ sauce and served alongside apple kimchi, pickled red cabbage and spiced fresh “cucumber kimchi” reminiscent of oi muchim.
The KBBQ Steak Bowl features steak, KBBQ glaze, romaine lettuce, white rice, apple kimchi sauce, roasted broccoli, cucumber kimchi and pickled cabbage. The KBBQ Steak Plate swaps out the lettuce for a more dinner-friendly meal. Finally, the Cucumber Kimchi Crunch Salad forgoes steak and rice, but adds the KBBQ glaze to roasted sweet potatoes atop romaine and spring mix, along with crispy onions, and the pickled cabbage, cucumber kimchi and apple kimchi sauce. We got a sneak preview of the KBBQ menu earlier this month and can confirm that, with any of these options, if you’ve got an appetite for sweet, spicy and savory with a pop of bright, fresh flavors, you’ll be satisfied.
Photo courtesy of Sweetgreen
“At COTE, we live by a beef-and-leaf philosophy — serving steak alongside pickled vegetables. It’s all about balance, the yin and the yang,” Simon Kim, founder and CEO of COTE operator Gracious Hospitality and Management, said. “This collaboration brings the spirit of Korean BBQ to a whole new audience in an unexpected way that feels both authentic and accessible. It’s rare to find a partner who shares our values and standards, but with Sweetgreen, the connection was immediate — it felt organic, like we were speaking the same language.”
The COTE-inspired KBBQ menu will be available at Sweetgreen restaurants nationwide starting Tuesday, May 13, 2025 for a limited time. However, Sweetgreen SG Rewards members can get an early taste on May 12 when ordering online or through the app.
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