CYCLE AND RECYCLE

Today let’s talk about trends.
Every decade, like any other industry, restaurants and customers are under the spell of trends. It’s basically the same ideas from the past that are recycled repeatedly, then revamped, and finally rebranded with a new name. And it’s fine; it’s a healthy cycle. Trends are normal. I don’t like them too much, so don’t ask me to follow any, but I am ok with them; they are part of the decorum.
So let’s take a trip back down to memory lane and see what was hip then, and now that I’ve got you, let’s have a look at what’s cooking those days.

In the nineties, the undisputed star was the chocolate lava cake and its brother-in-arms, Pesto, who was pretty much on everything. I remember that in those days, it was nearly impossible to find a menu without a Caprese salad, and fucking sun-dried tomatoes were practically mandatory.
And then there was the ultimate blockbuster: the Caesar salad. Probably one of the biggest nightmares a kitchen has ever had to produce because you could customize it at will, exactly like a goddamn burger. That's why I hate both.
No anchovies. Extra anchovies. Anchovies on the side.
Garlic croutons. No garlic croutons. Regular croutons instead.
Dressing on the side. No dressing at all. Just vinaigrette.
Parmesan on the side, extra Parmesan, or no Parmesan.
For fuck’s sake, at one point I was convinced people ordered that idiotic salad for the sole purpose of exercising the sadistic pleasure of saying,
“Can I have that on the side?”
And finally, that horrible, overrated Merlot was on every glass and on every goddamn table.

Let’s move on to the new millennium, the 2000s.
The era was exotic, and sushi was fucking everywhere—even in Italian restaurants and steakhouses.
Cooks were hiding perfectly good food under artistic zigzags of balsamic glaze on every plate like a painter on crack. Oh man, just thinking about it, I get nauseous.
Malbec and ""Cab"—you didn’t say Cabernet, not cool—were the only wines anyone seemed to drink, and if you ordered anything else, you were basically a has-been; so the rest of the wine list existed mostly for decoration.
Chefs built towers like tiny condominiums with a decorative foam serving as the swimming pool out of absolutely everything.

Every time you ordered fish, the server asked the same question: “Would you like it blackened?”

And of course, you washed it all down with two or three Cosmopolitans or a glass of Chardonnay. The must-have liquid poison at the time.
I know you are going to tell me I missed something… no, I haven't. It’s on purpose because just mentioning the name gives me a skin rash… But fuck it, I’ll say it… Brunch. It was the place to be.
Damn, I am itchy already.

Now we’re getting closer to our era. What was hip in the 2010s?
People were eating avocado toast topped with chia seeds or sesame seeds, or any fucking seeds you could find for that matter, as if it were part of a sacred morning ritual or if their lives were depending on it.
Kale was your best friend, whether you liked it or not. Fuck kale.
Bacon became the main ingredient on a meal, and everything else on the plate was just there to support it.
Some lunatic had the balls to desecrate the croissant, turning it into a doughnut, stuffing it with whatever happened to be lying around the walk-in, and calling it a cronut.
Apparently, burgers as a main course were no longer enough, so someone invented an appetizer version: the sliders, which you can order by the piece and still have the audacity to request a temperature.
Good luck finding a dessert that didn’t involve dulce de leche.
And somewhere along the way, the cocktail menu became a martini bible, and drinking them became a religion.

Now let’s see who is sitting on top of the podium nowadays.
Apparently, cooking burgers takes too long, so some geniuses started smashing them to sell more in less time.
For years, goats sat back and laughed at cows and chickens getting slaughtered while quietly making milk, and then birria became fashionable. Who’s laughing now, you dumb fuck?
Everything is either spicy or sweet, or both, or covered in chili crisp—speaking of which, apparently saying “sweet and spicy” requires too much effort, so some fashionistas dropped the "y." Too exhausting. 


Some moron decided to replace pork on the charcuterie boards and served flavored butter instead.Come on, man!

Caesar salad made a comeback, but it divorced romaine and married kale.


And let’s not forget the ultimate offense: one decided doughnuts should be savored so you can now eat them as part of a three-course meal. What the hell?

And we have our biggest stars. The winners of the decade.

Smoothies: Take whatever fruit or veggies you have on hand and blend them together. Here, drink a twenty-dollar liquid purée.

It looks like plating became so challenging that we decided to dump ingredients into one bowl and let the customer figure it out. Ikea on a plate, basically.

And finally, our mascot; Dubai—this or Dubai—that.

Dubaï cheesecake. Dubaï croissant. Dubaï cookies. Dubaï latte. Give it another six months, and someone will try to sell you Dubai hummus, a Dubai Caesar salad, or a Dubai burger. Trust me, do not underestimate the twisted mind of a chef. And don’t tell me it’s impossible now that I know KFC released and sold online chicken cereals with gravy for breakfast, and that fucking atrocity was sold out within days; anything is possible.

And what about its twin evil brother of the decade, Matcha?

This, as well, you can have it in everything we can think of: cookies, vinaigrettes, ice cream, sauces, and reductions. Soon enough we’ll have matcha béarnaise and matcha béchamel.

I’m not sure whether that reflects creativity or a complete lack of it.

The funny thing is, what is matcha?

First, it’s an ancient Japanese tradition. But a variety of tea, nevertheless. And now that it has been whisked and sifted hard enough in the marketing centrifuge, it has become tea for snobs. How "chic"!

Dude, try to be a little sophisticated; it’s boring to order tea. But if you order a matcha, now you’re part of the tribe; you’re in the circle. You are fashionable, and you can post it on your Instagram account.
Now if you really want to be part of royalty, you order both at the same time: a Dubai whatever with a matcha whatever. The perfect fucking combo for the happy few. And you are free, now, to make a reel and count the views, and you’ll probably be the star of the day.

I have nothing against trends. I'm usually curious enough to taste them, and of course, I have to cook them. You can't avoid them; they're part of the restaurant business. They come, they go, and eventually they come back wearing a different hat. But I check out when marketing force-feeds them to us until we reach complete saturation.
But what pisses me off is when some people dust off something that’s been around for decades, they give it a catchy name, double the price, and present it as if they've just discovered gravity. Sorry to shit on one’s parade, but I don’t call that innovation.
And I am not the only one; there are many customers out there who are old enough to have seen these trends before, and I am sure some don’t have the memory of a goldfish.

So why don’t we try to be a little bit humble? We are recycling, indeed, and it’s ok. It’s healthy. But let’s be careful not to push our luck because one trend chases another one, so if you give it another decade, we’ll rediscover pesto, drizzle balsamic reduction over it, and act like we’ve cured world hunger.
You know what? Maybe in another ten years, we’ll bring back sun-dried tomatoes, champagne vinaigrette, and flaky salt, plate them with surgical precision, and call them revolutionary cuisine.
And in the worst-case scenario, which is, I'm sure, not very far from happening, in another ten years, someone will reinvent what was already invented.
And twenty years after that, somebody will reinvent the reinvention.
Then they will give the whole thing a new name, double the price, and pad themselves on the back for having so much creativity.

Listen, the names of the old recipes don’t change; we just swap in the vegetable of the moment or the protein of the year to revamp them. Then we rebrand them with a hashtag, and voilà, the cycle will continue.
And we will keep on recycling.
For me the problem isn’t the trend by itself; it is the collective amnesia of the restaurant industry because every generation of chefs thinks it invented the fucking wheel.
Let's be honest, except on rare occasions, nobody does. They just plate it differently.

6/15/26

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