Naya, the US fast-casual chain whose menu is built around Lebanese cuisine, has rolled out a new lineup called Chef's Creations across its 44 restaurants. The set includes three pre-built bowls, a falafel and tahini roll, and a new Greek Salad, all designed to give first-time customers a curated entry point into a menu that started as build-your-own.
Senior Culinary Development Manager Khalfani Coicou confirmed the launch in an interview with industry publication Restaurant Business on May 6, 2026. He said the timing was tied to Naya's recent expansion beyond its New York City home into other urban markets, where many diners are encountering Lebanese flavors for the first time.
What is inside the Chef's Creations lineup
The headline item is the Classic Chicken Bowl: chicken shawarma, vermicelli rice, lettuce, pickled cucumbers, tomato, the garlicky Lebanese sauce known as toom, and lemon tahini. The Classic Braised Beef Bowl pairs braised beef shawarma and vermicelli rice with pickled turnips, cabbage slaw, sumac onions, hummus, and lemon tahini, the same combination diners would normally find inside a beef shawarma wrap.
A reformulated falafel recipe, with green bell pepper and parsley folded in, anchors the new Falafel and Tahini Roll. The wrap is served with hummus, cabbage slaw, pickled turnips, tomatoes, cucumbers, and a double portion of lemon tahini. A new Greek Salad rounds out the launch, built from existing kitchen ingredients like romaine, cucumbers, tomatoes, green bell pepper, olives, feta, and sumac onions, tossed in a house-made za'atar-spiked dressing.
Prices for the four chef-curated items range from $10.59 for the falafel roll to $14.24 for the beef bowl. Coicou said the only new ingredient brought into Naya's supply chain for this launch was the green bell pepper. The braised beef had already been developed for a fall limited-time offer before being promoted to the permanent menu.
A bet on broader US appeal
Naya started as a build-your-own concept anchored in Lebanese cuisine, with sauces and spices sourced from Lebanon. Coicou told Restaurant Business that authenticity is non-negotiable but that some kitchen techniques have to flex for US operations. Spit-cooked chicken shawarma, for example, is mimicked by careful slicing rather than installing actual spits across all 44 stores.
Curated bowls are the practical answer to a problem most fast-casual operators eventually face: customers who do not recognize the ingredients freeze at the line. By packaging the most familiar Lebanese combinations into a single ordering choice, Naya can speed throughput and reduce the chance that a first-time diner walks out with a bowl of clashing flavors.
Why Lebanese F&B operators should care
Naya's playbook fits a broader pattern of diaspora-led Lebanese food brands trying to scale outside the home market. Its menu still reads as Lebanese, with shawarma, toom, sumac, hummus, and tahini in the lead roles, but the format is being engineered for an American audience that may not have tried the cuisine before. That balance, staying recognizably Lebanese while remaining legible to a non-Lebanese customer, is the same tightrope every regional F&B exporter walks when crossing a border.
Coicou said customer feedback in the first month has been positive, with the Greek Salad standing out. He is now working on a summer limited-time offer and new beverage offerings scheduled for release in mid- to late-summer.
