The mish salad at Chateau Coffee Shop in Woodmere is a cult classic. Here's why.

Now here's a Long Island food adventure that'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 and the surrounding Five Towns of Nassau County. The mish, or mish mash salad, is a total blast from the past that will delight that amateur food historian in you. 

WHAT IS MISH SALAD?

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 up eating something called the mish mosh soup at a New Yorker-owned Jewish deli in Phoenix, which had the chutzpah to put a matzo ball, noodles and kreplach in the same bowl. 

But the mish salad is an entirely different beast. This retro-looking mix is very finely chopped and served in a boat-shaped casserole dish,  with a history that goes back to 1958, when Norman Negrin opened Chateau Coffee Shop as a counter inside a Woodmere pharmacy. Eleven years later, he opened Chateau restaurant next door, and the salad flew under the radar until New York City influencer Jenna DeNapoli created a viral video declaring it "the original micro chopped salad." In the video, she takes her mom for lunch at Chateau, where their family used to go on the way from their home in East Rockaway to their cabana in Atlantic Beach. 

@itsme.jennad 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 “mish” 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’t forget to get a whole wheat toasted pita on the side! #choppedsalad #famouschoppedsalad #motherdaughter #lunch #saladsoftiktok ♬ original sound - ItsMeJennaD

Jenna orders a turkey mish, and her mom orders a diet tuna mish with whole wheat pita bread and a diet chocolate egg cream. DeNapoli said over the phone that as a professional nurse, she makes viral TikTok videos where she prepares healthy "micro-chopped salads," inspired by Chateau. 

"It’s a Five Towns thing only. A lot of people on the North Shore know about it, because they originated in the Five Towns," she said. "The neighborhood has changed but that’s the one thing that stayed the same. It’s so great, I love it there." 

FIVE TOWNS CLASSIC

Stepping into Chateau is like walking onto the set of a '60s movie. The narrow luncheonette is 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 salad. On a recent day, customer Philip Althein is eating a chicken mish. He lives in "the back of Lawrence" and has been coming to Chateau for 60 years.

The walls of Chateau are splattered with faded photographs and funky collage art of cereal box cartoons, all from another regular, 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.

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 chicken mish he gets with cucumber and feta cheese, he admits he has no idea why the salad is so popular. 

"The No. 1 is the tuna, and then the No. 1A was added a little while after, which is the low-fat tuna," he says about the most popular items. "You got the No. 2 and the No. 2A. Because we use the low-fat mayonnaise." 

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. Then 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.)

The Indy tuna salad ($13.50) comes out so finely chopped that it looks like coleslaw. Each bite is practically infused with tuna, making it flavorful enough that I barely need to touch the squeeze bottle of Italian dressing given on the side. I actually prefer it to the other mish, with finely chopped turkey ($14.49) that is blander. 

A woman sitting with her friends behind me, Arleen Ackerman, stands up to tell me why she was "a lover of the mish for many years." She says that she dreams about the mish. 

"The original owner, Norman, I said to him, 'Why do you serve it in this casserole dish?' He said to me he was a very young man when he started here. He didn't have enough dishes," she recalls. "He used to serve beans and franks, and he only had casserole dishes." 

At that, another customer, Jason Bergenfeld, who is eating with his young son, pipes up 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.

"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."

Chateau Coffee Shop, 1 Station Plaza, Woodmere, 516-374-0310, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, closed Sunday. 

WHERE ELSE TO FIND MISH SALAD

Pantano's Gourmet 

1308 Broadway, Hewlett and 1150 Hempstead Tpke., Uniondale

This mini deli chain has a location the next town over in Hewlett, 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 also 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, like the mish grew up and got a job. More info: Hewlett number, 516-569-4421; Uniondale number, 516-483-4911, pantanosgourmet.com. 

Island Lake Diner

625 Portion Rd., Ronkonkoma

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 sticks pretty close to the Chateau version, with finely chopped iceberg lettuce and a flurry of grilled chicken on top. More info: 631-676-5500, islandlakediner.com.