ThisBowl Will Change Your Life, if You Let It.

All photos by J Lee.

Welcome to Cooked, a brand-new column where we’ve enlisted J Lee to assess the state of dining in New York City and beyond. A longtime connoisseur of all things food and bev, Lee has worked in the industry for almost two decades, and joins Interview as our newly minted food editor. In this second installment, he makes a visit to ThisBowl, the trendy, health-conscious Australian chain restaurant that recently opened downtown.

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ThisBowl is an Australian chain that serves “bowls.” Somewhere between Sweetgreen, Cava, and a poke bowl, they opened their first location in Noho (Naurho) last year. Their second location recently opened in NoMad (Next up, Naurlita?) They have perennially long lines, a collaborative hoodie with Marni, and a cult-like following. I had to experience it.

ThisBowl. This motherfucking bowl. Don’t be scared—ThisBowl will change your life, if you’ll let it. 

It’s a beautiful Thursday afternoon in NoMad, it’s hot (finally), and there’s a line for ThisBowl. It’s not long, but long enough to let you know that you’ve arrived. Across the street you can see a Chipotle. Staring at a Chipotle while in line for ThisBowl feels sad/wrong, like running into your ex while out on the town with your new, much hotter (Australian) partner. You’re wearing sunglasses and you pretend not to see one another. No pleasantries are exchanged. You keep on walking. There’s no line for ThatBowl. 

This little bowl of ours is sleek, it’s shiny, it’s sexy, like if the Apple store sold zines. Stepping into ThisBowl feels like stepping inside of a USM modular storage solution: shiny pipes and a wall of glass create a very clear separation between front and back of house. They have a great sound system and they love to use it. The electronic music is loud, you can feel the bass, it induces anxiety. Imagine Dig at Elsewhere. I feel dirty inside of ThisBowl. I feel like a bug, like a germ, the Alo clad lymphocytes will be attacking me soon enough. My time here is nigh. 

What is a bowl? A bowl is a vessel. A bowl is a canvas on which to paint your desires, your aspirations. And ThisBowl is a mirror in which to reflect them. ThisBowl is you. You are ThisBowl. I’m zoning out. I’m dissociating. I’m staring at the bright blue menu screen pondering the masterpiece I’m about to create/ingest. Who do I want to be? Today I am the O.G (salmon sashimi, kale, beets, red onion, edamame, roasted sesame, seaweed salad, avocado, spiced scallion crunch, tobiko). I add avocado and chili jam. I’m feeling old. When I moved to New York, NoMad hadn’t been invented and poke had yet to make its way to the mainland.  A popular choice at the NoHo location is called Sophie’s Way. Here, in its place, they’ve created a bowl called NoMad’s Way (sushi rice, roasted chicken or braised beef, white cabbage, carrot, radish, scallions, carrot ginger, wasabi mayo drizzle, candied cashews). I order it, and add miso-glazed eggplant. No Sophie’s Choice today, I allowed myself two bowls. And a yuzu beet soda. 

There’s a system in place at ThisBowl that I don’t quite understand. I’m not sure if it works entirely, but the space looks fantastic. Do I sit and wait at a marble table, or do I pace around like a rabid dog foaming at the mouth? The music is too loud to hear your order number. I think maybe you just grab a bowl that looks pretty and hope for the best. You can eat ThisBowl with chopsticks. I choose to eat mine with my hands. I shove my face straight into my bowl. I inhale ThisBowl, I breathe it in like a pearl diver finally coming up for air. You feel it at first in your fingers, in your toes—a slight tingling sensation. You feel a bit warm, you’re flushed, sweaty, and then you’re in it. Everything fades away. You’re falling. ThisBowl is deep. 

It’s hard to leave ThisBowl. There’s one door, and it’s always blocked by a crowd of attractive, athleisure-wearing people. Are they working hard, or hardly working? It’s always hard to say. It feels like a fire hazard, but that’s fine. The food at ThisBowl is a case study in hyper-contemporary cuisine. It leans heavy on umami and sugar, with a strong emphasis on texture. There’s just enough spice to give it dimension and edge. It’s dynamic by design, chaos and balance. It’s everything, everywhere, all at once, served in a custom designed biodegradable container. 

Crunch is the defining facet of ThisBowl. Step five when building your bowl is to select your crunch (spiced scallion crunch, candied cashews, umami nut crunch, tamari almonds). Crunch is the cherry on the sundae (imagine a whole sundae made of cherries). It’s experiential and fun. It lets you know the food is fresh, and it gives you something to chew on (literally). It reminds you that you’re alive. Crispiness, by nature, will always fade. Step four when building your bowl is to select a protein. One of the options is miso-glazed eggplant. One cup of eggplant has 0.8 grams of protein (compared to 38 grams in one cup of chicken breast). At ThisBowl, the word protein is being redefined. It’s lost its meaning rooted in science. It melts into abstraction.

That’s all to say that ThisBowl is excellent, it’s remarkable, it’s amazing! I love ThisBowl! ThisBowl is the most delicious “bowl” I’ve ever eaten, and it’s certainly the “coolest.” I would eat this everyday if I had to. It’s Sweetgreen by Braindead with a goon bag (none of these words are in the bible). They’ve been to Japan, they’ve been to Bali, they’ve taken their fair share of pingers, and they’re here to serve you sex appeal in the shape of a bowl; designer sludge as seen on SSENSE (40% off). This is Cava by Anne Imhof. The biennale just called, they love your bowl; they’re giving you the Golden Lion! Eating at ThisBowl makes you feel skinny and smart. It makes you feel healthy, wealthy, tan, and well-traveled. In short, it makes you feel Australian. 

We often imagine a dystopian future where humans are forced to ingest grey goo through tubes or have our sustenance delivered intravenously by robots. But the dystopian/utopian future we got (and deserve) is one where Australian graphic designers shovel vaguely Asian-inspired slop into a molded cardboard trough. We eat it up like little piggies. And we love it. All the while they harvest our adrenochrome so Emperor Murdoch can live another hundred years. Long live Emperor Murdoch. Here’s to a glorious century!

Sign me up. Shave my head. Send me to the front line. I will fight for ThisBowl. I will die for ThisBowl.

They say fame is a gun. So is ThisBowl.

This is my bowl. There are many like it, but ThisBowl is mine.

Huah!