The 23 Coolest Restaurant Trends We Spotted In 2016

Restaurant wallpaper worth stealing, new ways of cooking with fire, next-level banchan, and lot more
This image may contain Flame Bonfire and Fire
Alex Lau

Pho beats ramen, eggs Benedict bows to khachapuri, doughnuts still rule, and 20 other discoveries we made while searching for this year’s best new restaurants.

Alex Lau
  1. Is There Anything You Can’t Milk?

The coffee world presents a tyranny of choices: latte or flat white? Ethiopian or Colombian? And it just got more vexing. Shops are showing up soy and almond milks with, let’s say, nuttier milk alternatives: pistachio and hazelnut at D.C.’s Pineapple and Pearls, cashew at Corvus Coffee Roasters in Denver, oat at Baker Miller in Chicago, and macadamia at L.A.’s Go Get Em Tiger.


Alex Lau
  1. The Bar of the Future

Wood-paneled geometric interiors from New York design firm Home Studios—like this stunner, Sisters in Brooklyn—are redefining bar and restaurant design. A few of Home’s signature details coming soon to a spot near you:

Do the Math
Home relies on symmetry and mathematical angles. “We’re fans of the 45-degree angle,” says design director Danielle Epstein. “It’s logical. We use restraint while still having fun with the materials.”

Look Up
Wood paneling on the super-high ceiling keeps the space feeling down-to-earth. “We weren’t going for an overwhelming, grand feeling,” Epstein says. “We wanted it to be comfortable and neighborhood-y.”

Age Gracefully
The white Portland cement bar top is unfinished and unpolished, so it’ll age and patina over time. That gives it character and an “incredible warmth that you don’t associate with concrete,” she says.


Courtesy of General Porpoise

Elizabeth Cecil
  1. Fill ’Er Up

Pretty soon, standard jelly doughnuts will be so obscure they’ll be answers on Jeopardy! That’s because our favorite airy pillows of dough are getting inventive fillings like date-shake custard (General Porpoise, Seattle), Earl Grey cream (Vive La Tarte, San Francisco), Cointreau (Blue Star, Portland, OR), and grapefruit curd (Galaxie, Louisville, KY). What is a jelly doughnut? A thing of the past for 600, Alex.


Bathroom or art installation? At Black Eye Coffee in Denver, the WC is both.

Benjamin Rasmussen
  1. Have You Seen the Bathroom?!

Today’s WCs are like carefully curated art installations begging to be the backdrop of your next selfie. A sampling of some of the coolest things we noticed in bathrooms this year:

Disco Balls at Dino’s Tomato Pie, Seattle
A colorful LED light show starts the moment you open the door.

Quirky Signage at Trompo, Dallas
Male and female figures on the bathroom door are trying to “hold it.” Been there!

Audiobooks at Black Eye Coffee, Denver
Jeff Bridges’s Sleeping Tapes and Christopher Walken reading Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven play on a rotating loop.

Cutouts at The Spillover, Miami
A life-size version of Telemundo host Don Francisco greets diners. Why not?


Alex Lau
  1. Rice Ballin’

Japanese onigiri are compact nori-bound triangles of seasoned sushi rice with fillings. And right now they’re being stuffed with all sorts of deliciousness, like smoked local fish at Short Grain Food Truck in Charleston, SC, and fried chicken at Brooklyn’s Kichin. They’re a portable ode to the subtle beauty of perfectly cooked rice—and they’ll soon be your favorite leftover-filled snack.

Get the Recipe: Onigiri


Doug Friedman
  1. Two (Green) Thumbs Up

Succulents are quickly losing ground to restaurants’ latest botanical obsession: tropical plants. Just look at Leo’s Oyster Bar in San Francisco, which doubles down with tropical wallpaper.


Ted Cavanaugh
  1. Don’t Leave the Bar Without It

You probably have a craft beer–obsessed pal who preaches the genius of growlers as a great way to bring home beer from a brewery. But there’s an even better way, and it’s called a Crowler. Filled from a standard tap and quickly capped with a pop-tab top using a special sealing machine, these bad boys are giant (32 oz.) cans, essentially budget-conscious and travel-friendly cousins to the growler. Cousins that will be the future of your to-go craft beer consumption.

Spotted at: Singlecut, New York City; Prohibition Pig, Waterbury, VT; The Answer Brewpub, Richmond, VA


Alex Lau
  1. Slam Dunk Idea

Ask to take home leftovers at New York’s Perla Cafe, and rather than awkwardly dropping the doggie bag on the table while you’re still on dessert, they’ll give you a sports figurine of, say, Atlanta Hawks star Dominique Wilkins. It works like a coat-check ticket—at the end of the meal, turn it in and get what’s left of your New York strip.


Photo Courtesy of @NyFoodGram
  1. The Sandwich Selfie

As any Instagram fiend knows, holding a halved sandwich—especially a bagel one—in your hand to show off its layered interior is the new ice cream cone against the wall.


Alex Lau
  1. Pho-tastic

We used to seek out pho in Little Vietnam or Chinatown. Now the Vietnamese noodle soup (and, speaking from staff experience, guaranteed hangover cure) is going mainstream. Stock in Philly and Bone Broth Noodles in Belgrade, MT, are serving the healing broth, scented of star anise and lemongrass. Don’t tell ramen we’re slurpin’ something else.


Ted Cavanaugh
  1. Burn, Baby, Burn

Wood ovens don’t work without wood. Probably not something you think about when tearing into a slice of impeccably charred pizza, but for chefs like Angela Dimayuga at NYC’s Mission Chinese Food, the logistics of the low-tech fuel are often on their minds. “That natural hardwood aesthetic is cute,” she says, “but storage is a nightmare.” Which is just one reason she switched to the compressed sawdust blocks she first saw at Zahav in Philly. Envi’s space-saving, easy-stacking blocks are also eco-friendly, made from hardwood sawdust (a natural by-product of milling) that’s pressurized into dense bricks that burn hotter and cleaner, and produce less ash waste than logs. That’s why they’re so hot right now.


Alex Lau
  1. Farm to Table(top Grill)

Look: There was nothing wrong with traditional banchan, the complimentary small plates that accompany Korean barbecue. But still, there’s something so right about the seasonal, house-made spin modern Korean chefs are putting on the classics, like these summery offerings from chef Sohui Kim at Brooklyn’s Insa: 1. House-made fish cakes with cucumber and seaweed 2. Daikon radish kimchi 3. Potato and egg with beef crumble (a powder made from offcuts) 4. Kale stems with pickled seaweed 5. Gaji namul, a dish that typically uses steamed eggplant. At Insa, the eggplant is charred instead for a smoky flavor 6. Corn custard, made with a corn powder that Kim dehydrates in-house 7. Oi Sobagi, a cucumber kimchi 8. Summer squash with walnut and perilla 9. Dried radish muchim with gochugaru


Photo Courtesy of Sub Rosa
  1. The Drop-the-Mic Brunch Dish

If pizza and poached eggs had a genius offspring, its name would be khachapuri, a Georgian specialty best described as a boat of dough filled with cheese and egg. It’s served any time of day, but the early(-ish) hours are when it truly crushes the competition.

Spotted at: Sub Rosa Bakery, Richmond, VA; Oda House, NYC; Compass Rose, Washington, D.C.


Alex Lau
  1. Get Your Goat

Chefs are turning to goat meat in herds, and Erik Ramirez of NYC’s Llama Inn explains why. “Goat is so flavorful compared to other meats. It’s grassy, barnyard-y. We get so used to seeing lamb, pork, and beef on menus; we know what those taste like. It’s time for something different.” Also spotted at: Dos Urban Cantina, Chicago; Tail Up Goat, Washington, D.C.; Rapscallion, Dallas


Benjamin Rasmussen
  1. Take a Page From the Library

Despite bad memories of all-night cram sessions, we always dug the library aesthetic. It seems we’re not the only ones: Library-table reading lamps (also known as banker’s lamps) have entered the dining room, from Denver’s Black Eye Coffee to Seattle’s Bar Melusine.


Ted Cavanaugh
  1. Battle of the Sparkling Waters

Two niche fizzy waters became unlikely cult figures on drink menus this year. Do you know your La Croix lovers from your Topo Chico groupies?

La Croix Lovers:

  • Emphatically pronounces it "la-qua" like Hannah on Girls (it's actually "la-croy")
  • Hashtags Instagram posts #livelacroix, with questionable irony
  • Really into pastels

Topo Chico Groupies:

  • Wouldn't eat a breakfast taco without it
  • Highly recommends a trip to Marfa
  • Has a thing for vintage beer cans

Wes Frazer
  1. Getting the Hang of It

Look up in a restaurant kitchen and you might see food literally dangling from above. There’s lamb leg soaking up smoke at Shepard in Boston (it’s gentler than using a proper smoker), links of homemade lap cheong drying under the hood at Mister Jiu’s in San Francisco, romanesco dangling over the fires at Buxton Hall in Asheville, NC, and twirling coils of octopus cooking slowly from below at Cleveland’s Trentina. In other words, suspension is the new sous vide.


Alex Lau
  1. Winner, Winner

America’s favorite bird really took flight this year. We saw chicken simply roasted and served alongside crisp frites and a green salad at Coquine in Portland, OR. We enjoyed it deconstructed—breast poached and roasted, thighs fried, the rest tossed with mayo—at mad scientist Grant Achatz’s “casual” Roister in Chicago. But nothing captured the hearts (and Instagram feeds) of diners quite like the showstopping chicken for two at New York’s Le Turtle. Brined, air-dried, steamed, roasted at three escalating temperatures, and, finally, paraded through the dining room on a bed of flaming hay, it’s the dish that secured chef Greg Proechel’s coveted spot in the whole-bird pecking order. (Sorry.)


The Dabney in Washington, D.C.

  1. Sweet Talk

In our book, the baked potato is first and foremost a good excuse for eating sour cream and cheese (okay, and bacon). But the sweet potato is the kind of natural beauty that needs no heavy makeup. Especially when restaurants like The Dabney in D.C. and Cala in San Francisco are charring them in the coals for hours until the skins turn black and the flavors concentrate and the sugars softly caramelize and…why did we ever do it any other way?


From top left; La Moule, Fiorella, Winsome, and Chop’t

PHOTOGRAPHS: Dina Avila (La Moule); Jen Siska (Fiorella); Photo Courtesy of Chop’t; Skandia Shafer (Winsome);
  1. From the Window to the Wall

Wallpaper is prettying up spaces across the country, like at Winsome in L.A., which features a re-creation of Phil Dike’s 1938 watercolor Sunshine in Echo Park, and at Fiorella in SF, where Flavor Paper’s “Bay Area Toile” is an ode to local celebs like Alice Waters and rapper E-40.


Richard E. Aaron/Getty Images
  1. Dearly Departed

As restaurants paid tribute to the monumental musicians who died this past year, we couldn’t help but notice what a wonderful soundtrack it made. The greatest hits:
“Night People,” Allen Toussaint
“Modern Love,” David Bowie
“Can I Kick It?” A Tribe Called Quest
“I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink,” Merle Haggard
“Little Red Corvette,” Prince


Ted Cavanaugh

22.Don’t Hit Reset

Changing out silverware with every single course is fussy and unnecessary. So restaurants are doing something about it.

The Caddy
Chef Erick Harcey designed custom wood-and-brass silverware “caddies” for his Scandi-ish Minneapolis restaurant, Upton 43. Each holds three knives and three forks—intended to carry diners through each of the menu’s three sections.

The Pouch
Stock Manufacturing, which makes the uniforms at Chicago’s Roister, designed these cotton pouches, each of which holds three forks, one spoon, and one knife. The pouch is closed with an elastic band that hooks onto a pair of chopsticks.

The Tile
As part of its zero-waste ethos, The Perennial in San Francisco doesn’t refresh silverware between courses; instead, guests rest their knives and forks on recycled glass tiles that look like something you might find at the beach.


Ted Cavanaugh
  1. Best Dressed

We love a mignonette, but oyster accompaniments have gotten way more creative (from left):

Pickled apple + scallion kimchi + gochugaru at Norah, L.A.
Preserved lemon + apple cider gelée + chives at Petit Crenn, San Francisco
Fennel + black tapioca at Conosci, Washington, D.C.
Ginger + shallot + Champagne at Local Provisions, Asheville, NC
Pomegranate + pickled serranos + basil at Olympia Oyster Bar, Portland, OR