For diners who don’t shy away from heat or spice, or aren’t afraid to taste ingredients they’ve never heard of, 2015 was a fantastic year in food. It was a year of menus featuring big, bold flavors and many unfamiliar ingredients. Here are some notable trends from the past year, and the chefs and restaurants that were brave enough to menu them.
Brightening with citrus
Citing the ability of citrus to brighten everything, chefs increasingly cooked with citrus fruits of all kinds last year. Yuzu, a lemon-like Japanese fruit, and grapefruit were among the fastest-growing citrus fruits on menus, Datassential MenuTrends reported.
Among the many chefs using yuzu was Jonah Kim, who brightened up Brussels sprouts at the pop-up version of Yona, the recently opened Japanese- and Korean- influenced noodle bar and small plate restaurant in Arlington, Va. Kim scored the sprouts to induce blossoming when fried, and then served them with a sauce made of, yuzu and aged vinegar.
At Sidney Street Cafe in St. Louis, chef Kevin Nashan incorporated the unique yuzu in his Wood Grilled Gulf Shrimp Roll, made with apple miso butter, Chinese-sausage-stuffed shrimp head, pickled apples and apple yuzu dashi.
Meanwhile, the Brazilian steakhouse chain Fogo de Chão offered a Winter Citrus Salad made with sliced white, pink and ruby red grapefruits, oranges blood oranges and tangerines topped with finely chopped mint leaves and a sprinkle of sugar. Ladybird Grove & Mess Hall in Atlanta served up roasted grapefruit for brunch.
Challenging with chilies
With several varieties of spicy or smoky peppers having grown popular on menus, some chefs decided to push diners’ pepper-loving limits by using chile varieties unfamiliar to most Americans, as well as chile oils.
Both Tony Messina, sashimi chef of Uni Sashimi Bar in Boston, and Eric Korsh, executive chef of North End Grill in downtown New York City, used aji peppers, which come from South America or the Caribbean, on their menus last year. Messina used aji panca, which has a fruity, smoky flavor with lingering heat, for his Mirugai with gochujang and cucumber. Korsh, who grows, harvests and pickles his own aji dulce peppers, a sweet perennial variety with floral undertones and moderate smoky heat, uses them on his Spanish Mackerel Crudo, along with cucumber, grapefruit, serrano and radish.
Chile oil was an important ingredient on many a menu last year, including at The Gladly, a casual bar and restaurant in Phoenix, where it was used in Madras Curry Pork Belly with spicy cucumber salad, coconut broth, pea tendrils and cashews, and at Edmund’s Oast, a brew pub in Charleston, S.C., where chile oil was drizzled on a Pork Belly Pastrami sandwich with bacon-braised butter beans, polenta and sunny side farm eggs.
Exploring ethnic flavors
Building on diners’ growing acceptance of foods from around the globe, chefs continued to play with spices, flavors and ingredients from a variety of ethnic cuisines, including Indian. Many chefs offered Indian-influenced dishes on their menus last year for the very first time.
Chef Jonathan Dearden at Ardeo + Bardeo in Washington, D.C. was among those who added Indian flavors to his menu for the first time last year. Dearden made Vadouvan Roasted Snapper, made with snapper that is seasoned and marinated in an Indian curry blend with the addition of garlic and shallots cooked in a hot, buttered pan.
In another first, Cincinnati-based Buffalo Wings & Rings introduced a limited-time offer of The Wings of Fury, traditional chicken wings tossed in curry powder dry rub and then crisply fried, topped with Sriracha sauce and served with a scallion cream for dipping. It was the first time the chain had used an Indian-inspired flavor for its wings.
Meanwhile, the culinary team at Beef ‘O’Brady’s, a Tampa, Fla.-based chain of family sports restaurants, began exploring Indian sauces to use with its various proteins and wings.