Gregory Morrow
2009-12-30 20:04:33 UTC
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/dining/chi-091021-worst-dining-trends-pictures,0,5192606.photogallery
10 worst dining trends of the last decade
"Decades from now, when you reflect on what dining was like during the
fledgling years of the 21st century, on a good day you will picture a
heartening trend toward comfort food in the wake of Sept. 11 and a
well-meaning push toward locally sourced menus.
But on a bad day, when someone asks what the worst restaurant trends of that
first decade were, will you be able to shut up? One restaurant type cracked:
"As long as we're not naming names, I'll talk. Because now that you ask
this, specific chefs and self-important restaurants are coming to mind."
Then there were those who, like It Boy and New York chef David Chang, when
asked to name the worst trends of the decade, simply blurted: "The
Cheesecake Factory. The Kobe beef movement was stupid -- it was never meant
to be a burger! Sliders are stupid too. Sorry, I mean to say 'a trio of
sliders' is stupid. What else? Walls of wine bottles as decoration. The
steakhouse craze -- why does there need to be more than a couple of
steakhouses in any metropolitan area?"
Then, when his outrage subsided, Chang made an excellent point: "Bad trends
were usually good trends. They just got watered down into a really bad,
overdone trend."
Which, in a way, is precisely how Tanya Steel, the editor-in-chief of
Epicurious (epicurious.com), saw the decade unfolding: "The beginning and
the middle were just the height of obnoxiousness, very reminiscent of the
1980s -- you call ahead for a table and they tell you '5:30 or 10:30' though
there are 10 empty tables at 8 p.m. There were restaurants, especially here
in New York, that refuse to list a phone number or have the name of the
place outside. I would say the second part of the decade didn't begin until
September 2008, when the economy meant no one could afford to act like that
now."
"Worst trend?" said Tim Zagat, co-founder of the Zagat restaurant survey. "B
uying wine to show off. It's not new but it got out of hand with Wall Street
types this decade. If you spend $100 on a bottle now, you're exhibiting some
degree of stupidity."
What follows are the 10 worst restaurant trends of the decade, culled from
interviews with chefs, consultants, even the owners of a food bookstore in
Maine. I couldn't include every gripe -- mache, water sommeliers, organ-meat
entrees, unisex bathrooms, bacon tattoos on chefs, over-flaunted kitchen
burns, chefs tables ("usually they're done as an afterthought, and it
shows") -- but here's what leaped out, in order of annoyance:
10. Fried onion blossoms
A "personal pet peeve," said Rita Negrete, senior editor at Technomic, a
food industry research firm. Oh, Rita -- that is so far from personal. We
like to believe the fried onion blossom could be done right -- i.e., not
sweaty, or greasy, without slivers of onion behind monstrous tan shells,
served like county fair food on porcelain -- but we haven't seen it yet.
9. Molecular gastronomy
As Chang pointed out, not all trends start bad. That said, "few chefs know
how to do (molecular gastronomy), to make food fascinating and delicious at
the same time," Steel said. "Do I see it as a trend that will last? No. As
inspiration, maybe. But something feels disconnected when a chef has to buy
a machine costing tens of thousands of dollars to cook. If anything, it's
ebbing and will spark a return to beautiful and simple ingredients."
8. The $40 entree
Not just at establishments sporting Beard awards and gravitas. At your
neighborhood bistro. Enough.
7. The communal table
Said Michael Schwartz, the chef/owner of Michael's Genuine Food & Drink in
Miami: the communal table "assumes people who don't know each other want to
sit together."
6. Proudly obnoxious fast food options
Carl's Jr.'s Big Carl burger (920 calories). Hardee's Monster Thickburger
(1,420 calories). KFC's Double Down (bacon and cheese between fillets of
fried chicken serving as bread). A dare? A brazen red-state response to
blue-state delicateness? The genius was to market them not as mere meals but
extensions of your civil rights.
5. Knee-jerk online reviews
Extreme Yelpers and likewise. "In particular, the opening-night blog
reviewers," said Don Lindgren, co-owner of Rabelais, a food-centric
bookstore in Portland, Maine. "You can't judge a restaurant from its opening
night. It may be exciting to be there early. But to review it based on that
first day is crazy and wrong."
4. Foam
It's suds. We guess we taste the kiwi-caramel tones. (Wait, no, we can't.)
3. The menu as book
There is nothing wrong with "artisanal" or "local," or " Vermont-raised,"
and nothing wrong with identifying the source of the goat milk you are being
served, but when menu items grow to entire paragraphs, it's a bit much
2. The chef as media whore
They cook, of course. They also sell shoes and star in reality shows.
Sometimes they cook. Rocco Di- Spirito, a middecade pan flash, is arguably
the finest example. "There are celebrity chefs who manage to stay chefs and
run excellent restaurants," said Zagat, "but there are times when you wonder
what a chef is supposed to be doing. TV brings people into their restaurant.
But when do they find time to cook?"
1. Deconstruction
Said Joyce Goldstein, a San Francisco-based chef, cookbook author and
restaurant consultant: "I do not want a poached egg on top of carbonara
sauce and the pasta on the side. I don't want the ingredients laid out
before me anymore. I want a chef to show me how it is brought together.
Cooking has become an intellectual thing, but it's not a sensual thing. We
have all gotten so smart about food, we are losing touch with sex appeal.
Everything else is getting so exhausting -- a lot of chefs saying, 'Look at
me,' and 'Look at this technique,' and, next decade, I would prefer not to
look at them for a while."
</>
10 worst dining trends of the last decade
"Decades from now, when you reflect on what dining was like during the
fledgling years of the 21st century, on a good day you will picture a
heartening trend toward comfort food in the wake of Sept. 11 and a
well-meaning push toward locally sourced menus.
But on a bad day, when someone asks what the worst restaurant trends of that
first decade were, will you be able to shut up? One restaurant type cracked:
"As long as we're not naming names, I'll talk. Because now that you ask
this, specific chefs and self-important restaurants are coming to mind."
Then there were those who, like It Boy and New York chef David Chang, when
asked to name the worst trends of the decade, simply blurted: "The
Cheesecake Factory. The Kobe beef movement was stupid -- it was never meant
to be a burger! Sliders are stupid too. Sorry, I mean to say 'a trio of
sliders' is stupid. What else? Walls of wine bottles as decoration. The
steakhouse craze -- why does there need to be more than a couple of
steakhouses in any metropolitan area?"
Then, when his outrage subsided, Chang made an excellent point: "Bad trends
were usually good trends. They just got watered down into a really bad,
overdone trend."
Which, in a way, is precisely how Tanya Steel, the editor-in-chief of
Epicurious (epicurious.com), saw the decade unfolding: "The beginning and
the middle were just the height of obnoxiousness, very reminiscent of the
1980s -- you call ahead for a table and they tell you '5:30 or 10:30' though
there are 10 empty tables at 8 p.m. There were restaurants, especially here
in New York, that refuse to list a phone number or have the name of the
place outside. I would say the second part of the decade didn't begin until
September 2008, when the economy meant no one could afford to act like that
now."
"Worst trend?" said Tim Zagat, co-founder of the Zagat restaurant survey. "B
uying wine to show off. It's not new but it got out of hand with Wall Street
types this decade. If you spend $100 on a bottle now, you're exhibiting some
degree of stupidity."
What follows are the 10 worst restaurant trends of the decade, culled from
interviews with chefs, consultants, even the owners of a food bookstore in
Maine. I couldn't include every gripe -- mache, water sommeliers, organ-meat
entrees, unisex bathrooms, bacon tattoos on chefs, over-flaunted kitchen
burns, chefs tables ("usually they're done as an afterthought, and it
shows") -- but here's what leaped out, in order of annoyance:
10. Fried onion blossoms
A "personal pet peeve," said Rita Negrete, senior editor at Technomic, a
food industry research firm. Oh, Rita -- that is so far from personal. We
like to believe the fried onion blossom could be done right -- i.e., not
sweaty, or greasy, without slivers of onion behind monstrous tan shells,
served like county fair food on porcelain -- but we haven't seen it yet.
9. Molecular gastronomy
As Chang pointed out, not all trends start bad. That said, "few chefs know
how to do (molecular gastronomy), to make food fascinating and delicious at
the same time," Steel said. "Do I see it as a trend that will last? No. As
inspiration, maybe. But something feels disconnected when a chef has to buy
a machine costing tens of thousands of dollars to cook. If anything, it's
ebbing and will spark a return to beautiful and simple ingredients."
8. The $40 entree
Not just at establishments sporting Beard awards and gravitas. At your
neighborhood bistro. Enough.
7. The communal table
Said Michael Schwartz, the chef/owner of Michael's Genuine Food & Drink in
Miami: the communal table "assumes people who don't know each other want to
sit together."
6. Proudly obnoxious fast food options
Carl's Jr.'s Big Carl burger (920 calories). Hardee's Monster Thickburger
(1,420 calories). KFC's Double Down (bacon and cheese between fillets of
fried chicken serving as bread). A dare? A brazen red-state response to
blue-state delicateness? The genius was to market them not as mere meals but
extensions of your civil rights.
5. Knee-jerk online reviews
Extreme Yelpers and likewise. "In particular, the opening-night blog
reviewers," said Don Lindgren, co-owner of Rabelais, a food-centric
bookstore in Portland, Maine. "You can't judge a restaurant from its opening
night. It may be exciting to be there early. But to review it based on that
first day is crazy and wrong."
4. Foam
It's suds. We guess we taste the kiwi-caramel tones. (Wait, no, we can't.)
3. The menu as book
There is nothing wrong with "artisanal" or "local," or " Vermont-raised,"
and nothing wrong with identifying the source of the goat milk you are being
served, but when menu items grow to entire paragraphs, it's a bit much
2. The chef as media whore
They cook, of course. They also sell shoes and star in reality shows.
Sometimes they cook. Rocco Di- Spirito, a middecade pan flash, is arguably
the finest example. "There are celebrity chefs who manage to stay chefs and
run excellent restaurants," said Zagat, "but there are times when you wonder
what a chef is supposed to be doing. TV brings people into their restaurant.
But when do they find time to cook?"
1. Deconstruction
Said Joyce Goldstein, a San Francisco-based chef, cookbook author and
restaurant consultant: "I do not want a poached egg on top of carbonara
sauce and the pasta on the side. I don't want the ingredients laid out
before me anymore. I want a chef to show me how it is brought together.
Cooking has become an intellectual thing, but it's not a sensual thing. We
have all gotten so smart about food, we are losing touch with sex appeal.
Everything else is getting so exhausting -- a lot of chefs saying, 'Look at
me,' and 'Look at this technique,' and, next decade, I would prefer not to
look at them for a while."
</>
