{"id":206142,"date":"2026-04-22T16:24:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T16:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/206142\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T16:24:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T16:24:19","slug":"mish-salad-a-cult-classic-at-chateau-coffee-shop-in-woodmere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/206142\/","title":{"rendered":"Mish salad: A cult classic at Chateau Coffee Shop in Woodmere"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now here’s a Long Island food adventure\u00a0that’s so niche, even the people in the next town might not have heard of it. It’s the mish salad, and it’s a calling card for people who grew up in Woodmere<\/a> and the surrounding Five Towns of Nassau County. The mish, or mish mash salad, is\u00a0a total blast from the past that will delight\u00a0that amateur food historian in you.\u00a0<\/p>\n

WHAT IS MISH SALAD?<\/p>\n

The name is taken from the Yiddish expression “mishmash,” which means a mixture or jumble of different things. A former Long Beach resident, I’d never heard of the mish salad, but I grew\u00a0up eating something called the mish mosh soup at a New Yorker-owned Jewish deli in Phoenix, which had the\u00a0chutzpah to put a matzo ball, noodles and kreplach in the same bowl.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Newsday<\/p>\n

Newsday food writer Andi Berlin tries the mish salad. Credit: Anthony Florio<\/p>\n

But the mish salad is an entirely different beast. This retro-looking mix is\u00a0very\u00a0finely chopped and served in a boat-shaped casserole dish,\u00a0 with a history that goes back to 1958,\u00a0when Norman Negrin opened Chateau Coffee Shop as a counter inside a Woodmere pharmacy.\u00a0Eleven years later, he opened\u00a0Chateau restaurant next door, and the salad\u00a0flew under the radar until New York City influencer Jenna DeNapoli created a viral video<\/a>\u00a0declaring it “the original micro chopped salad.” In the video, she takes her mom for lunch at\u00a0Chateau, where their\u00a0family used to go on the way from their home in East Rockaway\u00a0to their cabana in Atlantic Beach.\u00a0<\/p>\n

@itsme.jennad<\/a> Come with my mama and I to eat at one our FAVORITE CHOPPED SALAD PLACES on Long Island. If your from the five towns or the area, YOU KNOW!!!! Chateau in Woodmere has salads called a \u201cmish\u201d which is where the micro chopped salad love was created. I got the turkey mish with egg whites and bacon. I drenched it in their honey mustard and Italian mix dressings. My mom got the diet tuna mish and a wild egg cream drink????? So weird of her. Anyway this place is iconic and I loveeee going here to eat. Don\u2019t forget to get a whole wheat toasted pita on the side! #choppedsalad<\/a> #famouschoppedsalad<\/a> #motherdaughter<\/a> #lunch<\/a> #saladsoftiktok<\/a> \u266c original sound – ItsMeJennaD<\/a> <\/p>\n

Jenna orders a turkey mish,\u00a0and her mom\u00a0orders a diet tuna mish with whole wheat pita bread and a diet chocolate egg cream. DeNapoli said over the phone\u00a0that as a professional nurse, she makes viral TikTok videos where she prepares healthy “micro-chopped salads,” inspired by Chateau.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s a Five Towns thing only.\u00a0A lot of people on the North Shore know about it, because they originated in the Five Towns,” she said.\u00a0“The neighborhood has changed but that\u2019s the one thing that stayed the same. It\u2019s so great, I love it there.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

FIVE TOWNS CLASSIC<\/p>\n

Stepping into Chateau is like walking onto the set of a ’60s movie.\u00a0The narrow luncheonette\u00a0is tucked into a picturesque apartment building across the street from the sleepy Woodmere train station. During lunch, the place is packed with devoted regulars, most eating one of the 20-some varieties of the mish\u00a0salad. On a recent day, customer Philip Althein is eating a chicken mish.\u00a0He lives in “the back of Lawrence” and has\u00a0been coming to Chateau for 60 years.<\/p>\n

The walls\u00a0of Chateau are splattered with faded photographs and\u00a0funky collage art of\u00a0cereal box cartoons, all from another\u00a0regular, pop artist Michael Albert. On the way to the bathroom, you can skip through the kitchen and watch one of the cooks furiously chopping salads on a long cutting board.<\/p>\n

\"Chateau<\/p>\n

Chateau Coffee Shop owner Dario Fuentes. Credit: Yvonne Albinowski<\/p>\n

The current owner, Dario Fuentes, stands behind the vintage counter, wearing a shirt with a cartoon character that looks just like him, but happens to be the previous owner. On a good day, he says they go through two cases of iceberg lettuce to make the mish salads. And although he’s a fan of the No. 8 grilled\u00a0chicken mish\u00a0he gets\u00a0with cucumber and feta cheese, he admits he has\u00a0no idea why the salad is so popular.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The No. 1\u00a0is the tuna, and then the No. 1A was added a little while after, which is the low-fat tuna,” he says\u00a0about the most popular items. “You got the No. 2\u00a0and the No. 2A. Because we use the low-fat mayonnaise.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

I didn’t want mayonnaise in mine so I ordered the No. 1B, which they call the “Indy,” referring to an individual can of tuna.\u00a0Then come mish varieties like shrimp salad, chicken fingers and hamburger. (There’s even a bacon-lettuce-tomato, because Chateau is one of the few restaurants in town that doesn’t keep kosher.)<\/p>\n

The Indy tuna salad ($13.50) comes out so finely chopped that it looks\u00a0like coleslaw. Each bite is practically infused with tuna, making it flavorful enough that I barely need\u00a0to touch the squeeze bottle of Italian\u00a0dressing given on the side. I actually prefer\u00a0it to the other mish, with finely chopped\u00a0turkey ($14.49) that is blander.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A woman sitting with her friends behind me,\u00a0Arleen Ackerman,\u00a0stands up to tell me why she was\u00a0“a lover of the\u00a0mish for many years.” She says\u00a0that she dreams about the mish.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A sign reads, Your “Wish” is Our “Mish.” Credit: Yvonne Albinowski<\/p>\n

“The original owner, Norman, I said to him, ‘Why do you serve it in this casserole dish?’\u00a0He said to me he was a very young man when he started here. He didn’t have enough dishes,” she recalls.\u00a0“He\u00a0used to serve beans and franks, and he only had casserole dishes.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

At that, another customer, Jason Bergenfeld, who is eating with his young son, pipes\u00a0up to talk about how he’s been coming here for 30 years. He lives in San Francisco but he grew up in Woodmere and says this is the first stop he takes his son when they get to town, after his parents’ house.<\/p>\n

“I came here when I was in high school back in the ’90s. I would come here always before school. I would have a cup of coffee at the counter and then walk to school,” he says. “This place is part of my childhood. And the best part as a parent, is I can give that to my children, and that being part of their childhood as well. … The mish can be replicated, but never duplicated.”<\/p>\n

Chateau Coffee Shop,\u00a01 Station Plaza, Woodmere,\u00a0516-374-0310, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, closed Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

WHERE ELSE TO FIND MISH SALADPantano’s Gourmet\u00a0<\/p>\n

1308 Broadway, Hewlett and\u00a01150 Hempstead Tpke., Uniondale<\/p>\n

This mini deli chain\u00a0has a location the next town over in\u00a0Hewlett, as well as one in Uniondale that prepare a salad called the Mary’s tuna mish ($11.95). The large salad is decidedly more contemporary than the original Chateau mish, as it has romaine lettuce and arugula instead of iceberg. There are\u00a0also tomatoes, olives, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers and provolone cheese chopped up in there. The atmosphere isn’t the same, but this salad is certifiably delicious,\u00a0like the mish grew up and got a job. More info:\u00a0Hewlett number,\u00a0516-569-4421; Uniondale number, 516-483-4911,\u00a0pantanosgourmet.com<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Island Lake Diner<\/p>\n

625 Portion Rd., Ronkonkoma<\/p>\n

In Suffolk County, the Island Lake Diner differentiates itself by having an entire menu of social media ploys, like chicken crust parm pizza, loaded bread bowls and multiple varieties of something called grub cones. The Greek chicken mish mash salad ($22.99) is the first salad on their menu and\u00a0sticks pretty close to the Chateau version, with finely chopped iceberg lettuce and a flurry of grilled chicken on top. More info:\u00a0631-676-5500,\u00a0islandlakediner.com<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Andi<\/p>\n

\n\tAndi Berlin is from Arizona and does not know where she is going. But when she gets there, she\u2019ll find something beautiful and delicious that the world needs to taste.\n<\/p>\n