I Tried the Slop Bowl That’s Supposed to Get You Jacked

In 2008, New York City became the first place in the United States to enact a calorie labeling law. If a restaurant is part of a chain with 20 or more locations, then it must list out the calories in food items on the menu. And if a customer asks, the establishment must be able to provide other nutritional information: saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbs, sugars, fiber, and protein. Failure to comply? A hefty fine.

Now, what if a restaurant not only willingly listed all of its dietary information, but let you adjust your meal’s composition—down to the gram—so that you could adjust your macros—carbohydrates, fats, protein—to achieve your fitness goals? That’s the story of Matter, a new fast-casual restaurant in New York City that’s catering to the growing subculture of optimizers who keep close track of what they’re putting into their bodies.

Here’s the thing: I’m part of that target audience. Sure, I’ve never actually counted my macros, or weighed out my food to ensure I’m getting all the protein per day I need to get yuge (unlike some of the health freaks in my office). But if Matter is making it that easy to track the fuel I’m putting in my body while minimizing the less desirable foods, then sure, I’ll bite. Literally.

Getting lunch at Matter is much like how you’d do it at any other fast-casual chain: you can place your order on its app or on a tablet at its sole brick and mortar location. As of writing, Matter offers eight preset plates, each with a different protein, and two of which are vegetarian options. You can also customize a plate from scratch or go for one of the pre-existing options and tailor it to your tastes and nutrition goals from there. That customization is where the fun begins.

Once you’ve selected your plate option, Matter breaks down the meal into its components: protein, base, veggies, sauces, and garnishes. For example, the mediterranean chicken bowl I ordered in-person on the tablet included roasted chicken as the protein, jasmine rice and organic baby kale as the bases, charred broccoli and Tershi spiced sweet potato as the vegetables, tahini amba as the sauce, and diced herbs and toasted chickpeas as the garnishes. Matter provided, through its ordering platform, the exact nutritional breakdown of those components: 728 calories, 48 grams of protein, 39 grams of fat, 52 grams of carbs, and 8 grams of fiber, adjusting the measurements as you added or subtracted ingredients and serving sizes. But when I visited their SoHo location, I did not want to settle for a bowl built for the normies. While I don’t necessarily have a strict workout program, I do exercise at least five days a week and have a casual goal of hitting 165 pounds by April. So I began to tap furiously on the tablet, concocting the post-workout meal of my dreams. Extra chicken breast! 30 grams of avocado! 25 grams of marinated egg! (That’s half of a medium-sized egg, if you were wondering.)