Which restaurants in the U.S. have served cultivated chicken from Upside Foods or GOOD Meat?
Executive summary
Two U.S. restaurants experimentally served cell‑cultivated chicken after regulators cleared Upside Foods and GOOD Meat: Dominique Crenn’s Bar Crenn in San Francisco carried Upside’s product and José Andrés’s China Chilcano in Washington, D.C., carried GOOD Meat’s product [1] [2]. Both rollouts were limited, high‑end tastings that have since been paused or ended, leaving no U.S. restaurants actively offering cultivated chicken as of early 2024 [3] [4] [5].
1. The first service: Bar Crenn’s historic tasting with Upside Foods
Upside Foods made the first consumer sale of cultivated chicken in the U.S. at a July 2023 tasting series hosted at Bar Crenn, the Michelin‑starred restaurant of Dominique Crenn in San Francisco, where one‑ounce sampling portions were offered as a limited dinner experience connected to Upside’s early public rollout [1] [3]. The collaboration was explicitly framed as an experimental, chef‑driven introduction intended to gather feedback rather than a permanent menu item—Upside described a “dinner series” and noted the events were a first chapter in a longer commercial strategy [3] [6].
2. José Andrés and GOOD Meat: China Chilcano’s limited offering
GOOD Meat, the Eat Just subsidiary, placed its cultivated chicken on the tasting menu at China Chilcano in Washington, D.C., part of chef José Andrés’s restaurant group, marking the other early U.S. venue where consumers could taste lab‑cultivated poultry [2] [7]. Reporting from multiple outlets identified China Chilcano as the site for GOOD Meat’s U.S. debut and positioned both chefs’ restaurants as natural testing grounds given their reputations and tasting‑menu formats [8] [2].
3. The pullback: why restaurants stopped serving cultivated chicken
Within months those limited restaurant offerings were paused: Upside announced it had “wrapped up” its Bar Crenn dinner series and said it would take the chicken “on the road,” and Bar Crenn no longer served Upside’s chicken as of early 2024 [3] [4]. GOOD Meat’s availability at China Chilcano was likewise paused or removed from menus in the same period, leaving coverage concluding that the handful of U.S. restaurants that once sold cultivated meat had stopped offering it, creating an industry limbo [5] [4] [9].
4. Context: regulatory wins, PR goals, and technical realities
The initial restaurant placements followed USDA and FDA clearances that allowed Upside and GOOD Meat to begin selling cultivated chicken in restaurants, a regulatory milestone touted by industry advocates and nonprofits as a step toward scaling alternatives to conventional meat [8] [10]. Yet insiders and investigative reporting highlighted enormous early‑stage costs, labor intensity, and scaling challenges that tempered the celebratory narrative and help explain why chefs rolled out short series rather than permanent menu items [11] [4]. Companies and chefs positioned the tastings as learning and PR opportunities, while advocates emphasized environmental and food‑security benefits—an alignment of commercial, reputational, and policy interests that shaped the fast but fragile restaurant debut [10] [1].
5. Bottom line and limits of available reporting
Factually, the only U.S. restaurants documented to have served cultivated chicken from those two firms are Bar Crenn (Upside Foods) and China Chilcano (GOOD Meat), both in limited tasting formats beginning in mid‑2023 [1] [2] [7]. Subsequent reporting shows both offerings were paused or ended by early 2024, and contemporary coverage describes a broader retreat from restaurant sales while companies reassess distribution and scale [3] [5] [4]. Reporting examined here does not confirm permanent menu listings beyond those limited trials nor provide exhaustive nationwide audits of every chef or pop‑up; if new restaurant partners have launched after the cited coverage, those openings are not reflected in these sources.