Six food trends we hate
Every year, Toronto Life’s April edition names the current food and restaurant trends we love, hate and those with which we have a love-hate relationship. Here, in no particular order, are our hated trends for 2010
Hipster decor. As we’ve seen with saloon doors, taxidermal beasts, laundry lines, ceramic dogs and airbrushed glamour shots, it is possible to try too hard to seem stylish.
Something ’licious this way comes. Winterlicious—not an inspired name, but we learned to live with it—has spawned an army of awkwardly monikered offshoots: Summer-, Lobster-, County-, Greeka-, Burger-, Spring-, Winter De-, Winter Fabu-. There’s even a restaurant called Rawlicious. Enough with the ’licious.
Restaurants that require babelfish. Haisai, Ame, Buca = hello, rain, hole. Foreign names = gimmicky.
No-reservation policies. Sometimes you just want to plan your life (and not wait two hours for octopus balls, a pizza or a few slices of salami).
Secret supper clubs. A small, exclusive, one-of-a-kind dinner with like-minded gourmands (i.e., an overpriced meal cooked by a sous in a weird location) is, like, so oughties.
Overwrought menu descriptions. The heritage breed pig was bottle-fed acorn mash at a bucolic organic farm? The purple potatoes were hand-harvested by well-paid farmhands? In other words, meat and potatoes.
• See the seven food trends we love » • See the five food trends we have a love-hate relationship with »
(Illustration: Jack Dylan)
