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Shake Shack to promote white truffle menu with fine-dining experience at select locationsShake Shack to promote white truffle menu with fine-dining experience at select locations

Ten restaurants will offer reservations for white tablecloth meals

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

February 22, 2023

3 Min Read
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Shake Shack is promoting the White Truffle Menu that it launched earlier this month with a VIP dining experience it’s calling The Truffle Table at 10 of its roughly 300 restaurants nationwide, the fast-casual chain said Wednesday.

For $20 per person, guests are seated at a white tablecloth-covered table set with fine china. A table of two gets a White Truffle Burger, a White Truffle ’Shroom Burger, Parmesan Fries with White Truffle Sauce, a shake, a bottomless beverage of choice plus all-you-can-drink canned wine from Gotham Winery, as well as a bottle of Regalis truffle oil and a chocolate truffle from New York City-based chocolatier Thierry Atlan.

The meal is available from February 27 through March 2 at the following locations:

  • West Village in New York City

  • Wilshire Blvd in Santa Monica, Calif.

  • The West Loop in Chicago

  • Newbury Street in Boston

  • Piedmont Park in Atlanta

  • Brickell in Miami

  • Domain in Austin

  • Rice Village in Houston

  • Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C.

  • Midtown Village in Philadelphia

Reservations are required.

The White Truffle Burger is a beef patty topped with fontina cheese, white truffle sauce made with Regalis truffle oil, plus fried sweet onions on a toasted potato bun It’s normal starting price is $8.99.

The White Truffle ’Shroom Burger is a breaded and fried portobello mushroom filled with Muenster and cheddar cheeses topped with truffle sauce and shredded lettuce on a toasted potato bun, also starting at $8.99.

Parmesan Fries with White Truffle Sauce are the New York City-based chain’s signature crinkle-cut fries topped with Parmesan cheese and served with white truffle sauce. It’s normal starting price is $4.69.

In a press release announcing the offering, executive chef and vice president of culinary innovation John Karangis said “We can’t wait to test this new fine dining experience with our guests to honor one of the most exquisite and luxurious ingredients in our pantry, the white truffle. From start to finish, we want guests to feel the most premium experience at Shake Shack from the food and wine to the table settings and music. It will be a night you won’t forget.”

Karangis himself has a fine-dining background, having worked at Union Square Hospitality Group’s Gramercy Tavern and Union Square Cafe in New York City before joining Shake Shack, which also was founded by USHG before going public.

In the chain’s latest earning call last week, Shake Shack CEO Randy Garutti said the restaurant was trying to attract guests who were trading down from full-service restaurants by offering premium items such as the white truffle menu.

Shake Shack first offered truffle-flavored items in late 2020 with a test of black truffle sauce — premium, but less so than white truffles — on burgers in select locations in New York and Los Angeles.

It launched a black truffle burger and accompanying truffle fries nationally in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Other chains have recently added truffle-flavored items as well, including Starbird Chicken, which is currently offering menu items with Truffleist truffle aïoli.

Last year Taco Bell offered loaded nacho fries topped with Truff truffle flavored hot sauce, Macaroni Grill offered Parmesan truffle fries over the summer, and, for the month of December, Black Tap offered a Filet Truffle Champagne Burger at its Las Vegas location for $50. Truffle Beef Tallow Fries were also available for $18.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

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About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
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