You ate this
Meals on Wheels
Our tailbone
has never recovered.
THis
CHAIR
Tired: Agriculture.
Wired: Mystery
mushrooms your
buddy found growing
in the ravine out back.
BOWL FOODS
BOWL FOODS
BOWL FOODS
BOWL FOODS
BOWL FOODS
BOWL FOODS
BOWL FOODS
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Who would have thought the ingredient that had a chokehold on 2010 would be pig ears? We had them in salads, on burgers, on toast (remember toast?). It was recession eating at its finest, and part of the overall nose-to-tail trend that swept in from England. We’re all for the texture, but when they’re on 10 different menus in a city, you have to worry about Wilbur.
Cholesterol be damned, this is 2009, and
pig fat is king
(and
everywhere).
BACON
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When No Reservations premiered in 2005, it catapulted the already famous Anthony Bourdain to superstardom, and kicked off a boom in hosted food travel television we’re still in the midst of today. Bourdain’s death in 2018 left a gaping hole that every streaming platform has since been scrambling to fill with everyone from Padma Lakshmi to Zac Efron to Stanley Tucci.
On what? On everything.
Live, laugh, light — on every wall in town.
Do you even
sourdough,
bro?
X
Without a doubt, the bowl was the "it" dishware of the 2010s. Sure, bibimbap and bún thịt nướng predate anything Chipotle, Sweetgreen, or Cava throws together, but once the chains seized upon the fine art of piling stuff on top of stuff — with sauce! — the masses were hooked.
Nothing’s hotter than knocking elbows with 13 strangers over dinner.
X
Few culinary questions carry the mind-bending potential of "What if?" What if croissants were given a glazing? What if California rolls were burrito-sized? What if infused milk conjured the joy of sugar cereals and Saturday morning cartoons? Sure, the prompt has led to an appetite-ruining abomination or two (I’m looking at you, hot sauce-flavored 5-Hour Energy). But we’ve achieved exponentially more from these gastronomic collabs than we’ve lost.
Mashup Foods
Because it wasn’t dinner without foam, powder, or spherification.
What does a mulleted musician with a “killer technicolor back tatt” have in common with the world’s best bakers and butchers? An aesthetic — and a vague sense of emotional or economic precarity.
The Chef As Rockstar
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Sometime over the last decade or so, The Brands™ decided there was strength in numbers. Enter the almighty collab, manifested via questionable corporate hookups like Dr Pepper-flavored Peeps and Kraft-infused Van Leeuwen ice cream, and a slew of celebrity chain pairings like Travis Scott for McDonald’s, Charli XCX for Dunkin’, and Megan Thee Stallion hot sauce at Popeyes. IP: It’s what’s for dinner.
The Collab Era
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Why pay $38 for a burger and a cocktail when you can pay $54 for a burger and
a cocktail BEHIND
A PHONE BOOTH?
Will Travel for Food
If you made it to 2025 without waiting in line for a Cronut or cupcake, posing in front of a neon sign at a Froyo shop, or being cajoled by a server into ordering 37 different small plates, good for you. The buzziest food, drink, and dining trends of the last 20 years were seemingly unavoidable, and have more staying power than their limited releases might suggest. Here, we’ve compiled 20 of the most impactful food fads from the past two decades, according to the Eater staffers who experienced (and sometimes ranted about) them all.
Nonstop Neon
Put an Egg
On It
The Communal Table
Pig ears
Pandemic Baking
The Cupcake Craze
What if every day felt like a four-year-old’s
birthday party?
Foraging
Pass the Tweezers
Speakeasies
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Nothing proved food’s ascendence to mainstream culture like the rise of food TV, which ran the gamut from the highbrow theatrics of Chef’s Table to all those increasingly contrived cooking competitions. Who needs culinary school when you were raised by 22 seasons of Top Chef?
FOOD ON SCREEN
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Any restaurant, even those with the most friendly servers and relaxed vibes, would still love to upsell you. And that’s much easier to do with the rise of shared plates, which means there’s less intuitive knowledge of how big anything will be. It’s now hard to visit any restaurant without hearing about their recommended three to 30 dishes per person, and how sharing is the move. What a concept.
The Smallest of Plates
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When Roy Choi started selling bulgogi tacos out of a retooled lunch truck and advertising its whereabouts on Twitter, he not only helped birth a new genre of LA cooking, but he showed a generation of chefs reeling from the 2008 economic crash a viable new business opportunity. Kogi was part of a wave of food trucks that kicked off in cities like New York, Portland, and Austin, and we’re still happily lining up for lobster rolls, tacos, and grilled cheese on wheels.
Bowl Food
CLICK TO REVEAL
Editors: Jesse Sparks and Lesley Suter
Writers: Nadia Chaudhury, Dianne de Guzman, Matthew Kang, Bettina Makalintal, Rebecca Roland
Creative director: Nat Belkov
Designer: Lille Allen
Copy editor: Nadia Q. Ahmad