TrendWatch
Kara's CULINARY TRENDS BLOGI take my job as CCD's Trendologist to heart and make sure to visit the latest culinary hotspots, specialty stores, and food and beverage industry events to stay abreast of emerging trends. NEW! Follow my
July 2010 - Sweet Home Chicago The charcuterie-gastropub trend is well entrenched in Chicago. To sample, I visited The Purple Pig on Michigan Avenue near where Transformers 3 was being filmed. I snaked through a few film production company barricades to arrive at the unusually mellow restaurant to enjoy a glass of rosé and some casual snacks. My favorite was Fried Manchego with Membrillo. But really, Chicago excels at more adventurous cooking, such as that of Graham Elliot Bowles, the bespectacled, rock-and-roll-loving TV chef having a good time deconstructing dishes into clever assemblages that take diners on a gustatory adventure. Dishes on the menu at Graham Elliot read like a beguiling formula, underscoring the rocker-mad scientist persona of the chef. I loved Duck Satay: green papaya + thai curry + lime powder + coconut froth. My Jidori Chicken was also fabulous with rice gnocchi + black garlic + maitake mushroom + edamame puree. Each plate is carefully composed and gorgeous; tucking in and landing all the ingredients in one forkful delivers a marvelous whole. Highly recommended for those who have had their fill of salumi!
I also enjoyed a creative meal at Province, which Chicago magazine called one of the Best New Restaurants of 2009. Its eclectic menu offers plates of all sizes, from "bites" to "big" to "bigger." From the "small" category, I couldn't resist the Brioche French Toast and Berkshire Pork Belly with chipotle-honey syrup. The Farm-Raised Shrimp and Anson Mills Organic Grits with manchego cheese was also satisfying. With a great selection of local vegetable sides, a wide range of sustainable meat, fish and poultry, and unique desserts, Province seems very contemporary indeed.
June 2010 - Summer Fancy Food Show A highlight of speaking at the NASFT Fancy Food Show this summer on Meatless trends was also being invited to join the Trendspotter Panel. I cruised the show with intensity on Sunday, scanning booths for something new, exciting and repeating. In the end, my list came down to:
I talked about the drivers behind these trends on a subsequent webinar with Ron Tanner from NASFT; they included Artisan Appeal, Flavor Adventure and Wholesome Healthfulness among others. Here are additional highlights:
June 2010 - Feasting on New York City To me, nothing beats wandering around Manhattan on a hot summer day looking for good things to eat. No sweaters to worry about, no fog coming in, just hot pavement, cool food and sandals. In town for the Fancy Food Show, I couldn't wait to visit a number of places we've profiled in past Culinary Trend Mapping Reports. Many are conveniently located in the East Village, including Momofuku Milk Bar (where I tried to eat everything in the store!) and Porchetta (where there is only one thing in the store). I also enjoyed a decadent poutine (a 2010 menu trend for sure) at Pommes Frites, caught a peek at Baoguette, and made the requisite pilgrimage to Babycakes, the tiny gluten-free bakery on the Lower East Side. The best thing I ate in New York? Gelato at Il Laboratorio de Gelato, hands down.
Meal-wise, my pal Beth and I scored seats a Minetta Tavern so we could taste for ourselves how the infamous Black Label burger, made from a special blend of Pat LaFrieda beef, compares to the regular one. It was incredibly beefy and delicious, and the house burger was delicious, too. Brunch at the Breslin Room was also treat; we marveled at the pseudo-English pub décor in the ultra-designed Ace Hotel. A very hip experience, complete with Stumptown Coffee. I met some old friends at The Smile, a fascinating coffee house and café in the Bowery, reeking of history and feeling very 19th century. That part of town is exciting, old and new at the same time. As always, New York City satisfies. If only I had time to hit Brooklyn!
June 2010 - Eating around St. Paul, Minnesota Street food comes to St. Paul in the form of a handful of food trucks offering downtown office workers tasty alternatives to standard city café fare. I visited the capital in late June and delighted in chatting with chef Ian Pierce of 128 Café, a spin-off of the popular local restaurant. He let me step into the kitchen to see how he and a fellow cook were preparing lunch foods, including fresh salads and ribs. I got a Kahlua rice krispy treat to thank him.
Pork is as big in the Midwest as it is on the West Coast. Case in point: Haute Dish, a decidedly pork-centric restaurant with a name that's a local play on words (a "hot dish" is the casserole-type affair one brings to a community event, potluck or church social). The restaurant announces it serves Classic Midwestern Cuisine and it mostly makes good on this promise with dishes like the Tater Tot HauteDish, comprised of braised short ribs, French cut baby green beans, porcini béchamel and potato croquettes. My local source pointed out that tater tots are all the rage around those parts, and why not? It's a drinking town! Less Midwestern was the Duck in a Can, inspired by Martin Picard's Pied de Cochon restaurant in Montréal. I, of course, sampled the pork belly dish, but was tempted by the Pork 'n' Beans made with gigante beans, pork belly, tomato jam and garnished with, yes, cracklings.
may 2010 - The Street Food of Portland
As I learned on an IACP street cart tour, the Portland street cart scene has been around for many years. It started with a wave of Asian immigrants offering street food specialties from their native lands; the second wave was made up of Eastern European immigrants (and thus the infamous "Schnitzelwich" at Tabor). Outfitting a street cart is a lot less expensive than a bricks-and-mortar establishment, as many unemployed people have discovered in the last few years, and with a town that looks as favorably on street food as Portland seems to, it’s a no-brainer business for the creative cook.
Downtown Portland is home to a number of street cart "pods," or areas where carts congregate (read about the scene at foodcartsportland.com). There are a bunch servicing the walk-able city center, offering Thai noodles, tacos, sandwiches, burgers, rice bowls and Cajun specialties. In other parts of the city there is a late-night empty lot with French fries, crepes and fried pies, and another newly developed lot devoted to carts with covered picnic benches, trash cans and even an ATM machine. Carts line the edges of random parking lots or turn up in gas stations, painted bright colors with goofy graphics, newspaper clippings taped to windows and friendly purveyors offering up delightful and tasty grub on the cheap.
Where did I eat? Our tour took us to the People’s Pig for porchetta, Potato Champion for poutine, Koi Fusion for Korean tacos (complete with a blessing from Kogi Taco Truck in L.A.), Brunchbox for the crazy "Youcanhascheeseburger," a cheeseburger between two, yes, two, grilled cheese sandwiches. My own personal tour the next day led me to Flavourspot, where the "Dutch Taco," or folded waffle filled with toasted pecans and maple spread wooed me. I also hit the Mississippi Avenue pod where Kir Jensen of The Sugar Cube plied me with delicious baked goods including a chocolate fleur de sel brownie with olive oil, an Amy Winehouse cupcake soaked in bourbon and garnished with a faux-coke straw, and a fab rhubarb pie. Well, a piece, anyway.
The highlight of the week in Portland was the Willamette Week’s Eat Mobile street cart festival under a freeway. IACP attendees got first crack at sampling the wares of about 30 carts. There was wood-fired oven pizza, grilled peanut butter and you-name-it sandwiches, falafel, ice cream, and, my personal favorite, Wiffies Fried Pies. What a gut-bursting feast!
Beyond street food, Portland is brimming with cocktail culture (and a great love of absinthe), meat any way you slice it (especially pork), chocolate (any number of chocolate shops and lots of great hot chocolate drinks) and quirky spots like Voodoo Donut and Hillbilly Bento. Oh, did I forget amazing coffee? Stumptown is the hometown hero but everyplace has a great cup to offer. Pok Pok Thai, a former street cart turned jammed restaurant, did not disappoint, and I finally got to try its drinking vinegars, which were a big hit with our large party gorging on traditional Thai dishes. I even won a $50 gift certificate at an event for Pix Patisserie, perfect for post-Thai Parisian macarons. And the farmers market was a joy, filled with fiddlehead ferns and morel mushrooms.
So if you are hungry, don't wait. Get yourself to Portland and check out the offbeat but passionate food scene that retains such local charm you are sure to be as bewitched as I was.
april 2010 - trendologistk reporting from paris & san francisco Macaron Trend Update - Read Feature Article»
As regular readers may know, I was convinced that Parisian-style macarons (not American coconut macaroons, but rather two pastel colored almond meringue discs sandwiching ganache, buttercream or jelly fillings) would become a fun sweet trend here in the States. That was in early 2006. Now the moment has finally arrived! Read more in this month's Side Dish Feature Article»
Marlowe: The Quintessential Neo-Bistro Experience
Marlowe is the epitome of several current trends, the first being the restaurant that can't make it, so closes and reopens as something more in tune with the times. Marlowe used to be the Australian-flavored South Food+Wine. While acclaimed and original, it must have been suffering, so in January 2010 the owners transformed it into a more familiar market-driven neighborhood bistro. Casual bistro dining really is what diners are craving it seems, all comforting and hearty, but with the ingredient upgrades we have all come to expect.
Marlowe does an excellent job of hitting all the hot bistro trends in its compact yet appealing menu, commencing with fun "snacks" and ending with a few desserts in jars. In the snack category, the Crispy Brussels Sprout Chips with Meyer lemon and Sea Salt were irristible. Burnished and delicate, the crispy sprout leaves delivered salty crunch with bright lemon notes, an exciting twist on chips. I was tempted by the Market Radish plate with Whipped Goat Cheese or even the Toasted Pistachios with Bourbon, Maple and Smoked Salt. These dishes all exhibit the allure of layers of flavor and texture, a must these days. Not to miss out on the trend train, Upside Down Apple Crisp and Meyer Lemon Curd Cake arrived in glass jars. I admit I love this glass jar trend as it cries out homey, cute and fun all at once. Marlowe has the neo-bistro experience down with tasty food, an accessible wine list and a fun, buzzing room. Marlowe
Adventures at Nombe The izakaya trend has been barely percolating in the Bay Area, despite our hopes that it would become more popular a few years ago. While New York and Los Angeles celebrate the Japanese sake-and-small-plates concept, San Francisco has simply dipped a toe into the trend water. But opening any place drink focused in the Mission district is sure to attract attention, so Nombe is now on the radar. The San Francisco Chronicle even added it to its April 2010 "Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants" list!
Nombe's pride is its sake list, as its co-owner is a sake fanatic. So, of course, Deputy Trendologist D and I took a stab at the list. D enjoys sake and ordered a bottle of his preferred style. While sake bottles may be cute and small, don’t forget they can cost about as much as a decent bottle of wine! No wonder the cups are tiny. For those unfamiliar with Japanese small plates, it may be a challenge to compose a meal from the wide-reaching menu with exotic names and ingredients, but the staff at Nombe assists. Dishes are divided between small and larger House Plates (Roasted Beets with Grated Wasabi–the real stuff!, Salmon Skin with Wild Nori Chips, Pork Belly, Black Cod), Agemono or Fried dishes (Chicken Wings, White Shrimp Tempura “El Diablo,” Agedashi Tofu with Katsuo Bushi, Shiitake) and Yakimono, or Grilled Skewers (Chicken Thigh, Gizzard or Heart, Pork Belly again). Tough to choose! The daily sashimi plate is always a stand out as are the house-made Japanese pickles (Miso Pickled Gobo, or burdock root, with Cucumber, Black Radish with Fennel). Desserts retain a Japanese feel with a Warm Coffee and Almond Mochi Cake and Chocolate Ice Cream Truffles sprinkled with soybean flour. The restaurant itself is typically Mission funky, with two side-by-side rooms and a women's bathroom with a urinal converted into a flower vessel. But that is the charm and perhaps the key to crossover success for an authentic small plates restaurant pushing good drink. Now if only the sake bottles were a little larger… Nombe
march 2010 - Hibiscus, barbacco & rickhouse stops Hibiscus
We enjoyed our Oakland Bistro Salad topped with deep-fried oysters and house-cured bacon. Of course it was garnished with an egg, as well, but that made sense. We also tried the plantains which game generously sprinkled with minced fried garlic. They tasted delicious but pity our seatmates at the Paramount Theater for Movie Classics later! Miss Ollies Fried Chicken called out to D and he loved it while I contented myself with Spicy Crab and Grits, which really was spicy! Hibiscus’ chef, Sarah Kirnon, former cooked at San Francisco’s Front Porch where she may have kicked off the fried chicken in independent restaurants trend many years ago. She brought her spicy batter recipe with her thankfully. Dessert was a panna cotta with guava and plumped golden raisins, a unique garnish but one that fit the theme well. It seems Hibiscus, with its separate triangular bar and cool interior paired with an out-of-the-ordinary but quite tasty menu, has found a winning formula for downtown Oakland. Hibiscus
Barbacco
The menu covers many popular small plate categories of Italian food, starting with bar snacks, moving to housemade salumi, cheese plates and salads, and taking a turn to warm dishes like pasta, grilled sandwiches, meat and vegetable sides. A nice selection of gelato and a few other pastries complete the menu. Among all these categories, diners can find all sorts of ways to craft a meal, sharing along the way.
Some highlights include generous, golden-fried Arancini, or risotto croquettes stuffed with cheese and meat; deep-red hued Duck Mortadella; warm and satisfying Soft Polenta with Mushroom Ragu and the Fennel-rubbed Porchetta with Radicchio-grape Agrodolce. This comes as a panino but without the bread it was a perfect meat entrée to accompany the polenta. Wines options are also plentiful and thankfully the servers are well versed in the extensive list. Really, it’s no wonder the place is mobbed with such an enticing, up-to-date package. Barbacco
Rickhouse
Rickhouse is definitely part of the ever-growing breed of bars dedicated to the best quality mixers, spirits and ingredients used in hand-crafted cocktails. And that breed, once the domain of food and drink cognoscenti, apparently has begun to attract a wider, after-work crowd, if the mass of guests is normally anything like it was the night I visited. Thankfully, there are two bars and some seating on a catwalk above the fray. But it leads me to dream about having my superior beverage experience at 3 pm to beat the crowds! Rickhouse
february 2010 - february flavors eVe, Berkeley In a time when many restaurants are either going out of business or trading down to more casual fare, it is refreshing to experience touches of fine dining without the bank-breaking check. High-end dinner plates, European crystal wine glasses, even hand towels in the bathroom all make eVe an exceptional little restaurant. They even offer a wrapped baked good for the next morning after the mignardise of two salted caramels. The special care and generosity of the owners just makes one want to go back and support their efforts. They’ve created a compelling formula that’s one to watch.
eVe
Show Dogs, San Francisco Yes, hot dogs have gotten very trendy in the last few years of economic stress; in fact, we are profiling them in our upcoming Street Foods Culinary Trend Mapping Report. They are cheap, familiar and, now, often upgraded. By that I mean, made with a wider variety of meat such as duck, boar, chicken and even heritage pigs, and topped with a range of flavorful, globally inspired and often homemade garnishes and condiments. All those guys and gals making trendy cured meats are trying their hands at hot dogs, too. And the results are damned good. San Francisco was in the forefront of this improved “haute” dog movement with Let’s Be Frank, a hot dog cart with sustainable meat hot dogs. The latest entry is Show Dogs. This new hot dog restaurant, owned by the restaurateurs behind Foreign Cinema, offers Let’s Be Frank’s all-beef franks along with a collection of the Bay Area’s best “boutique” dogs and housemade condiments. Meat-pusher Ryan Farr’s 4504 superior dog is present as are products from Fatted Calf, my favorite cured meat purveyor. On a recent visit, D and I sampled the Organic Duck Sausage with pasilla chile bbq sauce and kimchi and the Wild Boar sausage with remoulade and arugula. We got them bun-free on a bed of arugula and mightily enjoyed the delicate onion rings made with a gluten-free rice flour batter. A great selection of microbrews is on tap to accompany the dogs, as well as agave-sweetened tart lemonade. Next time, the corn dog!
Show Dogs
Sweet Trends Around Town In anticipation of our Confections & Desserts Culinary Trend Mapping Report due out this month, Lee (CCD’s office manager extraordinaire) and I took a little tour of San Francisco to discover some of the city’s trendiest baked goods. We stopped first at Kara’s Cupcakes (no relation, but as a former pastry chef, I sometimes wonder why this isn’t me!) to get a free sample of their new gluten-free cupcakes. They come in three flavors—vanilla, chocolate and coconut—and tasted delicious! The chocolate cake was a bit too tender as it was very fragile, but the vanilla had a great crumb and was a bit sturdier. While we were there, we grabbed a S’mores and Banana Caramel regular cupcake for folks back at the office.
San Francisco’s Mission District is home to a number of tiny companies making terrific foods; one is Mission Minis. They make mini cupcakes for many cafés and restaurants in the city as well as their street-food push cart. We got a nice sampling of red velvet, pumpkin, cinnamon horchata and more at their mini bakery in the Mission. The tiny size is inviting; they are just so cute!
With all that cake, we need some ice cream, so off we darted to Humphry Slocombe, where flavors feature unlikely ingredients such as Thai chilis, California olive oil, red wine + Coke, and bourbon + cornflakes. The Balsamic Caramel was a bit too intense for some CCD staffers, but the Secret Breakfast bourbon-cornflake combo was a hit.
Kara’s Cupcakes Paulette Mission Minis Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream
january 2010 - spotting trends at fancy food show The NASFT invited me to be one of their Trendspotters to determine the top trends at the winter show. Since I comb the shows for trends anyway, it was fun to compare notes with other Trendspotters. Collectively we concluded the following as trends at this show:
To elaborate….
Coconut was in everything from Harney & Sons organic green teas to World Foods Malaysian simmer sauces to a variety of chocolate confections. Expect the popularity of coconut water and Southeast Asian cuisine to keep this trend humming.
Gluten-free foods continue to grow in the specialty food sector as natural food products start overlapping and savvy producers realize they can expand their audiences. One good example is Porta Mangiara Meatball mix; of the various flavors, one was gluten-free. In the baked goods realm, my favorite cookie was from WOW (With Out Wheat). Since they aren’t trying to be vegan or even really healthful, the cookies tasted great!
Exotic citrus took the form of yuzu, Clementine, grapefruit, Meyer lemon and more. I was especially excited to see several yuzu products including The Yuzu Sco, a yuzu-flavored chili sauce used like a certain hot pepper sauce from Louisiana. Nostalgia foods are always big at the show, especially in the sweets category. I love Amella’s Cocoa Butter Caramels in Carrot Cake, Black Forest Cake and Passionfruit (ok, that’s not very nostalgic) flavors.
Other sightings and fun finds: Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Food frozen entrées and sauces
Chocolate O.D. In the Kitchen with Lisa
Dining at Frances Bay Area diners have been anxiously awaiting the opening of Melissa Perello’s very personal restaurant Frances, named for her grandmother, for months. Perello is the much celebrated former chef of Fifth Floor where she earned a Michelin star before taking a break to conceive of her own place.
At Frances, she “serves modern California cuisine in a relaxed neighborhood setting.” The intimate dining room felt festive the night I was there, full of enthusiastic diners along a banquette the length of the cozy room. Although the Bay Area is full of charming eateries of this nature, Frances stands out for the quality and care that makes the food shine, as well as great service and an accessible wine list. With a nod to the omnipresent bacon and doughtnut trend, the menu kicks off with Applewood Smoked Bacon Beignets with Crème Fraîche & Chive in a section called Bouchées, (French for mouthfuls or bites). Appetizers include Chestnut Soup and a salad dubbed County Line Mixed Chicories with Fuyu Persimmon, Almond and Pecorino. The chicories were gorgeous, small, curled salad leaves all freckly and tender, their faint bitterness nicely balanced with the persimmon and a haunting vinaigrette. I enjoyed the Alaskan Black Cod with Artichoke and Mushroom Barigoule. Other entrée choices include Pan-Roasted Chicken with Savory Bread Pudding and Lacinato Kale and Crêpe Cannelloni. My favorite side dish was Crisp Fingerling Potatoes “Sarladaise,” or cooked in duck fat as they do in Sarlat, a charming medieval town in Gascony France. The fitting finale was a delicate panna cotta in the now-trendy small canning jar, topped with perfectly cooked gooey orange peel. The French press pots of Blue Bottle coffee looked inviting and illustrated the care and quality of this delicious new restaurant. Frances Gather in Berkeley Gather is the all-day restaurant, café and bar in the new David Brower Center in downtown Berkeley, a “new home for environmental and social action.” Fittingly, Ari Derfel and Eric Fenster, founders of Back to Earth, the nation’s first organic catering company, run the restaurant. Reclaimed wood and other found building materials have been “gathered” to create a sustainably oriented, but totally up-to-date, eating space with organic bar and a menu driven by local products.
Chef Sean Baker, formerly of the vegan fine dining restaurant Millennium in San Francisco, has prepared an intriguing menu, covering all the current trendy California cuisine bases, but with a refreshing embrace of vegetables and tempting vegan fare. Small Plates include Fried Mushrooms with pickled sunchokes and citrus aioli as well as Cinnamon-Braised Lamb with marinated chicories, apples, yogurt and mint. The Artisanal Plates include both traditional house-cured charcuterie and vegan “charcuterie,” a seasonal collection of vegetable preparations, both served with Acme bread. The night I dined at Gather with Deputy Trendologist D, almost every table was adorned with the vegan charcuterie, served on a rustic wood plank. The brightly colored mélange of salads and crostini looked enticing, but we thoroughly enjoyed a unique appetizer special of mussels in a broccoli rabe-garlic broth. Salads show off what great produce Gather is sourcing: The Shaved Radish Salad featured Watermelon radishes, Baby Doll turnips and Sekel pears along with toasted walnuts and aged Jack cheese. Of course, there are pizzas, including a vegan offering with cashew purée, tomato sauce and chopped olives. Large Plates feature the “Lucky Dog Ranch” burger, with Sierra Nevada cheddar, aioli, caramelized shallot-tomato sauce, arugula and house-made pickles. You can’t get any more on-trend than that! Heirloom Bean Ragout and Red Quinoa “Risotto” cover the vegetarian bases while Braised Pork Cheeks, Chicken Under a Brick and a daily fish round out the menu for omnivores. Although Gather is only open for dinner at the moment, I look forward to creative, fresh and local breakfast and lunch dishes from this new spot embracing a 21st century credo. It doesn’t hurt, either, that Gather indicates which dishes are or could be gluten-free. See, so on trend! Gather
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Kara Nielsen, CCD TRENDOLOGIST 
WHAT IS A TRENDOLOGIST?One who studies hot and happening food and beverage trends. As the CCD trendologist, I track and translate culinary trends by immersing myself in a plethora of food-centric media, that is when I'm not off visiting markets, specialty stores, cafes, hot new restaurants and off-beat food happenings. The purpose of my work is to inter-weave my findings with influential consumer trends as a way to help create on-trend successes for CCD clients. Visit my trends blog or subscribe to one of our Trend Publications to stay on top of the latest culinary trends! CCD Trend publications
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