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MenuMasters: Plant-based lamb and ‘everything’ knishesMenuMasters: Plant-based lamb and ‘everything’ knishes

Plus bread that Tom Brady will eat, candied bacon, Chinese food for kids and a Reuben pizza

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

November 10, 2021

6 Slides
Jack Charlies Everything Knish

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Low-carb diets aren’t usually called low-carb diets anymore. They’re usually called Keto or Paleo, focusing on the fat and protein that its devotees can eat rather than the bread and pastries that they can’t, but cutting back on carbohydrates continues to be a robust trend, as seen by the fact that Subway is testing a roll with just one gram of net carbs. The quick-service chain has even gotten football legend Tom brady to endorse it.

Another quick-service chain, Panda Express, is keeping the nutrition of its young customers in mind with the rollout of three kids’ meals developed to match the United States Department of Agriculture’s guidelines for children.

But indulgent foods continue to keep people’s attention such as First Watch’s candied Million Dollar Bacon and the potato knishes at Jack & Charlie’s No. 118 in New York City that are topped with “everything” spice and, if you want, golden osetra caviar.

American’s favorite topping for pizza has long been pepperoni, and it still is, but the Italian flatbread is now used as a carrier for any variety of toppings, including a new pie from Zalat Pizza, based in Dallas, made to mimic the flavors of a Reuben sandwich.

Meanwhile, plant-based meat analogs continue to enter the market, including a recent entry made mostly of pea protein that is meant to mimic lamb.

Related:MenuMasters: Looking forward to upcoming trends

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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