Cake, AI Anxiety, and 'The Bear' Were Among the Top Trends That Defined 2023
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We didn't have Grimace Crocs on our 2023 Bingo card.
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Shell Royster
2023 has been a year of contradictions. Diners are rejecting fine dining while welcoming new tasting menu restaurants with $500 price tags and year-long waitlists. They're eating caviar by the boatload while waiting in line for pepperoni cups and ranch. Everyone is deeply concerned about the future of AI despite embracing technology — when it benefits them, of course). It’s all so confusing, but since the pandemic, we’re just happy to be here, sitting at a restaurant, eating our favorite meal, and maybe even enjoying a cocktail or two. With that said, most of us are ready for it to be 2024.
So let’s look back on the year that was by way of the seven trends that defined 2023.
Food and television are more interconnected than ever
Chuck Hodes / FX
Since the age of Julia Child, cooking has been its own genre of television. In the last decade alone we’ve watched Top Chef breaking the mold for cooking competitions, plating becoming works of absolute art on Chef’s Table, and Gordon Ramsay screaming (when he’s not mentoring children on Master Chef Junior). Especially in the last year, it has become so deeply ingrained in the zeitgeist that the fourth wall can barely hold its structure.
For restaurant workers, the second season of The Bear was just as relatable as the first, and the inclusion of actual Chicago restaurants (including Kasama, the Filipino spot from 2022 F&W Best New Chefs Tim Flores and Genie Kwon) and racks on racks of chefs’ favorite cookbooks took the realism to another level. Then there were shows like Emily in Paris that worked food product placement into the actual plot — I mean, who knew how many French people loved eating lunch at McDonald’s? And it’s not only real food making its way onto TV. This past summer, TV made its way into a real-life restaurant with Netflix Bites, a Los Angeles pop-up with a menu of food as seen on Chef’s Table, Iron Chef: Quest to for an Iron Legend, Nadiya Bakes, and more.
Salads are the main character again
Sad lunch salads are a thing of the past. In fact, they’ve taken on a whole new personality. In 2023, salads can be healthy, but they don’t have to be. What they do need to be is good. And we’ve sure had some good salads in 2023. The lotus root salad I had at Ariari in New York City was the standout among the Busan-style dishes, and sesame oil drenched cucumber salad still remains my dish of the summer. The leaders of the salad revolution are inspired by the golden age of steakhouses — the wedges, Caesars, and Cobbs of the world.
Rethinking the definition of fine dining
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The second week of 2023, brought word that Noma, often hailed as one of the world’s best restaurants, would be closing. As F&W news editor Stacey Leasca stated, chef and owner René Redzepi could “no longer afford to produce showstopping cuisine while also paying his nearly 100 employees a fair wage and serving diners at a price they find reasonable.”
This announcement brought on questions that we continued to discuss for the months that followed: What do we consider to be “fine dining”? How has that category of restaurants impacted the hospitality industry? Why is fine dining so often associated with toxic work environments? How can anyone afford to operate a fine dining restaurant while still paying their employees a fair wage? Why, as a society, are we so enamored with fine dining when only the 1% can afford it? Do we even need fine dining at all?
With high-end restaurants still opening across the world (in Brooklyn, one of the founders of Noma just opened Ilis with a minimum cost of $195), it’s clear that fine dining isn’t going away any time soon. But hopefully, these curiosities will progress the often rigid, regressive standards of what we’ve come to expect from a “fancy” restaurant.
Cupcakes are out, gargantuan cakes are in
Eva Kolenko
Pineapple chiffon slab cake“No longer just for special occasions, restaurants on both coasts are investing in bold, singular, show-stopping slices of cake for dessert,” said former F&W restaurant editor Khushbu Shah in our December-January issue. Both restaurants and bakeries are leaning into the concept of a nostalgic, often massive slices of cake — so much so that their popular cakes are often sold out within a few hours. At Claud’s in New York City, the towering chocolate layer cake is as close as you could get to the one in Matilda.
In Downtown Manhattan, there’s a vegan chocolate mousse cake at Superiority Burger “that arrives at the table covered in caramelized Rice Krispies,” writes Shah. This movement isn’t exclusive to NYC.
“At Quarter Sheets, a beloved LA pizza shop, the move is to order one of 2023 F&W Best New Chef Hannah Ziskin’s stunning marzipan-wrapped princess cake slices,” Shah adds. “A riff on the classic Swedish cake, the slice is a structural feat of airy sponge, tart raspberry jam, and a generous amount of pastry cream.”
Fashion and food collabs are out of control
Food & Wine / Courtesy of Rachel Antonoff, Kate Spade, Lisa Says Gah, At The Moment, Coach / Photo Illustration by Alexis Camarena-Anderson
I wish I could show you how many Croc collaborations I have come across in the last year. I’ve seen fuzzy purple McDonald’s Crocs with Jibbitz that form into Grimace’s face, platform 7-Eleven Crocs, and Hershey’s Crocs that are as brown and orange as a Reese’s Cup — just to name a few. But it’s not just Crocs. Many brands are mimicking luxury fashion drops that are equally exclusive and perhaps, equally stylish. Take the Panera Baguette: a green handbag that’s long enough to fit a hoagie and cute enough to be your everyday purse. There are also more than a few silly, kitschy items like the Swiss Miss sweater that comes with a built-in hot cocoa pouch.
And let’s not forget the actual, high-end designers who have made food a part of their brand. “Rachel Antonoff is responsible for that famous pasta puffer, and she has dresses and knits in her “Edibles” collection, like this cute Black & White Cookie Sweater or that carrot one I’m currently coveting,” writes social media manager Merlyn Miller. “In a similar vein, Susan Alexandra uses beads and charms to feature food in her light-hearted jewelry. Show your love of lox and bagels with this delicatessen-inspired necklace.”
AI is ascending
Food & Wine / Photo Illustration by Alexis Camarena-Anderson / Shutterstock
Artificial intelligence is here and it is scary, but it is helping many restaurants do some pretty cool things, as Danny Meyer detailed at NYC #TechWeek. For a brewery in Fukushima, Japan, AI is helping support local fishermen by designing the perfect sake and fish pairings.
“Suzuki plans to implement sensor technology developed by Tokyo-based taste analysis and research firm Aissy to help break down the flavor profile of the fish to analyze how sweet, salty, sour, bitter, or umami it is,” says writer Erika Owens. “After seeing the results, the brewery would be able to create sake blends that balance the fish’s missing flavors, resulting in a well-rounded dining experience.”
Other AI attempts have proven to be less successful. McDonald’s is still perfecting drive-through ordering via AI, though IBM gave us promising updates, and every time we’ve tried to cook from a recipe written by ChatGPT, the results have been underwhelming at best. That doesn’t mean that AI isn’t a threat. ChatGPT is a powerful tool, one that is potentially powerful enough to operate many aspects of a restaurant (something that writer Jane Brendlinger explored after asking ChatGPT if it could run a restaurant). It is already starting to take over jobs in the hospitality industry — fortune cookie writers, for example, are being replaced by AI. Scary times!
Nostalgia will get us through
Courtesy of Miladys
This was a hard year. We’re still working through the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, and horrible tragedies are taking place around the world. So right now, what many people crave is comfort in the form of food that feels familiar and reminds us of simpler times or childhood.
“I can’t tell you the last time I went to a buzzy new restaurant without encountering some sort of dish that felt like a distant (or close) cousin to something I’d have once upon a time been thrilled to order off the 12-and-under menu at my local Jersey diner, or something that could’ve fit into the plastic tray of a Lunchable,” says senior drinks editor Oset Babür-Winter.
We’ve seen pepperoni cups with a bowl of ranch dressing, jumbo-sized Cheez-Its, and alphabet soup — and that’s just in New York City. Even if these childhood-inspired items are at least 10 times more expensive than what we ate way back when, it’s hard to put a price tag on the pure joy that comes when slurping down a fancy Jell-O shot.
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