Jacques, a small French restaurant in Finsbury Park, was my first fine dining experience in 1987 and I have fond memories of it. The proprietor, Jacques, was a flashy 40-something, very gay, very rude to customers (did I mention he was from Paris?), and biased towards drinking his own profits. . Nouvelle cuisine with much lower fat content and much smaller portions became a trend, and Jacques’s wonderful menu of rabbit with mustard sauce, mashed potatoes, and rich crème brûlée gradually gave way to carrot salad, and then… This was followed by a very small amount of toasted fruit. Thanks to cheaper ingredients and smaller quantities, Jacques was able to consume more Champagne sur la Maison.
You can’t talk about food trends without ranting about smashed avocados
One food trend today that I wish would go away is oversized sandwiches, including giant hamburgers. Basically, anything Jay Rayner calls “boy food.” It may sound delicious to the greedy, but eating this should be classified as an Olympic sport. When tackling this, be sure to cover your entire upper body with a napkin. This is a macho effort to cram as much stuff down my throat as humanly possible, and given the choice between these huge things and tiny portions, I don’t know what I would choose. I am.
Food and restaurant fashions are cyclical, and what sells well in one year may come back 10 or 20 years later. I’ll show you something you never want to see again. A diner with raw food, arrogant home chefs, small plates, and Instagram posts of every dish and course.
Molecular gastronomy: A term that chefs tend to hate, but many still seem to be obsessed with. Heston Blumenthal’s flagship restaurant, The Fat Duck in Bray, plays ocean sounds on individual headsets to accompany one of the 150,000 courses on the set menu, but to me it’s not just pretentious. , seemed completely unnecessary if the seafood really tasted good. Ocean. Egg and bacon ice cream was a dish that made headlines when it first appeared, and I can’t think of anything more disgusting. When that happens, bacon flavor comes to mind in everything from fruit pastels to seaweed to vodka. stop it.
Norwegian Foraged Cuisine: Popularized by René Redzepi, whose restaurant Noma is arguably one of the best in the world. It’s very frustrating. There’s a good reason why bitter fruits, inedible leaves, and other ingredients aren’t grown for cash. I don’t feel anything other than wild garlic. And I always wonder how the promises of the forest-to-fork gaffs (local is best, so all dinners are sourced within a 50-mile radius) will be kept when it comes to Campari and coffee beans. is. Olive oil and pepper?
Tinned fish: Sneaking into a restaurant from the back pantry, I found myself paying £16 for an unopened tin of sardines with a fork stuck in it. Scandalous. Don’t get me wrong, there are some delicious canned items like oysters, anchovies, and the best preserved tuna (in my opinion, better than fresh), but maybe you can just take the fish straight out of the can? Can it be provided? A real plate? As I sat there with the lid off, I was reminded of my visit to a domestic violence shelter. Due to lack of funds, the electricity was cut off and all the children had to eat canned food.
Toasters: There was a time when places like high-end delis would sit everyone at a communal table and put a few toasters in the middle. When I first saw this at Ottolenghi, I wondered why I didn’t just stay home and make my own brunch.
Avocado: You can’t talk about food trends without ranting about smashed avocados. It’s on every menu, especially in London’s middle-class enclaves, and a piece of toasted sourdough (don’t rush me) with a generous sprinkling of mashed avocado costs around £8 or £9. along with sea salt.
Other stimulants include patties served in Kilner jars, fried-ups topped with parsley and edible flowers, chips cut into thick pieces and piled up like a game of Jenga, and plates carved from granite. . When I see the word “demolition” on a menu, I get chills. That often means things like a pot of lamb with potatoes in one corner of the plate, lamb standing in a miniature potato chip basket, or carrots carved into the shape of a farmer.
But if I had to vote for the worst food of all time among all food fads, it would be the one that topped every delicious dish, from Kiev chicken to eggs and chips, for about a decade. It’s a mean and pathetic kiwi fruit accompaniment. Whoever started that particular trend should be charged with a hate crime.
