Whimsical items add pizzazz­­­ to menus­­Whimsical items add pizzazz­­­ to menus­­

Nancy
Kruse

Let’s face it: Diners just want to have fun. Besieged by bad news on many fronts, they look to restaurants to provide an inexpensive getaway that engages and entertains. They’re attracted to menu items that make them smile, and operators have responded with a wide range of innovative treats guaranteed to evoke a grin.


Candyland. Ice cream chains have been at the forefront of culinary whimsy as they’ve reimagined the contents of cone and cup. Baskin-Robbins is a 66-year-old brand that has ratcheted up the contemporary creativity quotient with smile-inducing flavors like Pink Bubblegum, chockablock with candy-coated bubblegum nuggets, and Firehouse #31, a cunning combination of hot cinnamon candy pieces and crunchy hot cinnamon ribbon embedded in red cinnamon and vanilla ice creams. 


MaggieMoo’s and Marble Slab Creamery also think outside the cone: The sibling operations celebrated National Pizza Month in October with free samples of their ice cream pizzas. Among the varieties available year round is the cheeky Cheese Pizza, in which vanilla ice cream is covered with red icing and white-chocolate curls meant to resemble conventional pizza toppings.


Some product presentations make playful use of lollipops, like Starbucks’ Petites line, which includes three varieties of mini cupcakes on a stick. Marshmallows are in vogue, too, and while high-end operators offer house-made versions, mass marketers focus on their ingredient potential. At Atlanta’s Flip Burger Boutique, the Nutella and Burnt Marshmallow Shake is like the classic s’more in a glass, while the Streetza Pizza truck in Milwaukee puts the same combination on a pizza crust before topping it with hot fudge. Golden Corral is currently rolling out the Chocolate Wonderfall, a fountain-like construct that gushes milk chocolate, in their units’ bakery and dessert area.


Midway memories. The recent past has seen the revival of items typically connected with carnivals and circuses. Cotton candy has gone uptown, as at Simon at Palms Place Hotel in Las Vegas, where a signature Big Bowl of Cotton Candy is a dessert-menu mainstay. Funnel cakes have been appearing regularly on chain menus, like the No Fair Funnel Cake sundae introduced by Cold Stone Creamery last winter, in which the cool ice cream offset the warm cake. Fresh popcorn is also back in style as both a snack and a side dish, such as the caramel corn at Phoenix’s Culinary Dropout. 


Twists and turns. It’s clear that many menu R&D executives like to indulge their own inner child. How else to explain the wonderful silliness of Shari’s new Pie-Shake, which literally combines a patron’s favorite pie flavor with ice cream. And what else could account for the runaway popularity of red velvet, the classic cake that’s lending flavor and color to pancakes and puddings, donuts and drinks, and even to the yogurt at TCBY. 


Not all culinary kid stuff is sweet. The Cheesecake Factory’s Macaroni and Cheese Burger is literally a burger topped with everyone’s comfort favorite, and it ranks among the chain’s top-three best-sellers. Pretzels have made a comeback, with pretzel rolls gaining traction as sandwich carriers. At Wienerschnitzel, a chili dog is nestled inside a pretzel bun, while Red Robin’s Oktoberfest Bürger featured a toasted pretzel bun, plus Black Forest ham and zesty beer mustard. But the last word in pretzel innovation must go to The Chancery Family Pub, a six-unit chain in southern Wisconsin that offers Waiter, There’s a Beer in My Soup — a soup made of three cheeses and Wisconsin beer, and topped with a huge, salty pretzel in place of a crouton. It’s a savvy ingredient mix that’s sheer fun in a bowl.

Nancy Kruse, president of the Kruse Company, is a menu trends analyst based in Atlanta. E-mail her at [email protected].