Mozzarella cheese stuffed with cream and more shredded mozzarella has become a popular ingredient, or even the centerpiece, of a growing number of dishes thanks to its attractiveness and creaminess. Last summer, Carrabba’s Italian Grill surrounded it with tomatoes, basil, red onions, and balsamic glaze and dressed it in olive oil.

Caviar technically just refers to salted and preserved sturgeon eggs, but more broadly it describes all roe, and sometimes other foods that look like it. All of them have been proliferating on menus, but especially the real deal, which is almost always farm-raised these days due to declining wild sturgeon populations and the fact that they traditionally proliferate in the Caspian Sea controlled by our non-trading partners Russia and Iran.

But black tobiko — flying fish roe — is pictured here at Brazilian churrascaria chain Fogo de Chão, where it’s garnishing egg salad on brioche toast on the chain’s Bar Fogo menu, priced starting at $10.

Fried chicken sandwiches aren’t the only trending form of the bird. Chicken curry is spreading on menus faster than any other type of chicken dish except for sandwiches, according to Technomic. Keep an eye out in particular for versions of Japanese chicken curry, which Tender Greens offered this year.

Pictured is chicken tikka flatbread from Twin Peaks.

You can read more about chicken curry here.

This condiment with Chinese origins, made by heating chiles in oil until they become crispy and then augmenting the oil with other spices such as crisped up garlic and onion, Sichuan peppercorns, and mushroom powder, has taken retail shelves by storm and is becoming more widespread at restaurants, too, including chains such as First Watch, Twin Peaks, and Honeygrow.

Here it’s pictured at Dog Haus dressing Mighty Moa Wings, which were tossed in teriyaki aïoli and topped with spicy mayonnaise, chili crisp, and scallions.

You can read more about chili crisp here.

The combination of orange and vanilla was introduced to menus starting in March, when Wendy’s added orange to its vanilla Frosty, but continued throughout the summer and into the fall, with items like this one from Sonic Drive-In: The Orange Cloudsicle Slush Float was an orange slush with orange and vanilla flavored boba topped with vanilla soft serve and more boba.

“Dirty Soda” is technically any soda with something added to it, but usually it’s dairy or coconut cream, and it’s now an option at large chains including Jack in the Box and Sonic Drive-In (pictured) after having been popularized at Utah-based chains including soft-drink concept Swig.

The trend is likely driven by their eye-catching appearance, and the fact that dirty sodas are highly customizable.

Dry-aging fish has long been a custom in Japan, where the process is used to enhance flavors and soften texture, similarly to dry-aging meat. But the idea that the freshest fish isn’t always the goal is catching on in the United States, too, where chefs like Tomer Blechman, who opened Theodora restaurant in Brooklyn earlier this year, served this branzino that was dry-aged for four days in a climate- and humidity-controlled chamber, resulting in a fish with more intense flavor and silkier texture. He dressed it with olive oil and roasted it at 800 degrees Fahrenheit until the skin blistered, serving it brushed with the condiment salmoriglio (lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, salt, and marjoram) and accompanied by lightly dressed greens.

This shimmering addition to drinks makes them fun and social-media-friendly, and restaurants made use of that fact over the course of the year. It was part of drinks that Bonefish Grill launched in conjunction with the Nov. 22 release of Universal Pictures’ Wicked.

The Ozmopolitan has Absolut vodka, Malibu rum, cranberry juice, sour mix, mango purée, and edible glitter, and Oz’s Elixir has edible glitter along with Absolut vodka, Malibu rum, pineapple juice, and lime and green apple flavors.

This chile, reportedly so-named because its heat can sneak up on you like a ghost, was the “it” pepper of the fall, possibly because it fits so well thematically with Halloween menus, but also because Americans have a growing fondness for spicy food.

Ghost pepper was baked into a bread at Subway, added to cheese at Penn Station East Coast Subs, and made into a sauce at Hot Head Burritos and Eureka!, among other applications.

It’s also the base chile for many of the wings at Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen.
Although the pepper itself is almost inedibly spicy in its natural form, it’s toned down considerably at restaurants.

Pictured is The Ghost, a burger Carl’s Jr. tested in 25 Los Angeles restaurants. It was topped with ghost pepper cheese, tomatoes, bacon, and “soul-scorching hot sauce.”

Nashville hot chicken has become so ever-present that operators are riffing off of it to invent new dishes, such as chicken dressed in hot Moroccan or Korean spices, or, as pictured here, using different birds.

This crispy brined hot quail was on the opening menu of Albertine, which Joe and Katy Kindred opened in Charlotte, N.C., in September. It’s actually dressed in Aleppo pepper oil and served over a sauce of labneh blended with sumac, dill, shallot, cumin, and coriander.

Sustainably grown, low in calories and high in flavor, mushrooms proliferated on menus as ingredients in salads and on pizzas, as well as in sauces and as center-of-the-plate stars, such as this mushroom raviolo at Third Kingdom in New York City, which was plated to resemble a mushroom in a meadow basking in the sun.

Third Kingdom is a reference to fungus, the kingdom to which mushrooms belong, as opposed to the animal and plant kingdoms.

Oysters are not just sustainable; they’re regenerative, improving the quality of the water where they grow by filtering out impurities. They’re also high in protein and photogenic, two important factors in food these days.

Cultivation of these bivalves is expanding in the United States and there’s now a certification program in which people can study to by “oyster masters.”

Pictured here are oysters at casual-dining concept Pour House, where they were added to the menu as part of a broader revamp earlier this year.

This purple sweet potato from the Philippines is growing in popularity thanks to its vibrant color. It’s on display here in the icing of mochi doughnuts that Randy’s Donuts offered this winter at locations in Southern California.