Sorry, Dubai chocolate, you’re so 2025. As we head into the new year, here are a few recent food trends ready for the big menu in the sky. Most began with genuine appeal: a craveable flavor, something unexpected, a dish that captured the culinary zeitgeist. Then the novelty wore off and most of us quietly moved on.
Every bacon boom and cake-pop craze has its day. These trends have simply reached the end of theirs.
Pickle-flavored everything
Enough already. We don’t need pickled lemonade, Warheads sour pickles, pickle gum or pickle-flavored potato chips. (Never mind — pickle-flavored chips are still good.) But the pickle craze is following the same trajectory as the early-2000s bacon boom: fun at first, then irritating, then exhausting. At some point, you stop celebrating a good thing and start ruining it by forcing it into places it doesn’t belong (bacon soda, we’re looking at you).
Chicken and waffles
We all loved this soul food staple, but it may be time to head back to the coop. Too many gummy waffles and greasy, overcooked chicken have drained the enthusiasm, leaving me asking the same question every time: Why did I order this again?
Dubai chocolate
TikTok made me do it. After watching influencer after influencer crack open that pistachio-cream, tahini and kataifi-filled bar — crunchy, oozy and undeniably luxe — resistance felt futile. For months, it was impossible to find locally, which only heightened the frenzy. Last summer, I finally got my first taste. It was heaven in a foil wrapper. By the fifth bar, the spell was already thinning. And by the time it reappeared as a strawberry-and-chocolate sundae on the fair food circuit, the love affair was officially over.
Truffle oil
Leave your poor French fries alone. Dunk them in ketchup or mayonnaise if you must, but no more truffle oil. When the scent hits the table before the server, something isn’t right (fish often suffers the same fate). Mostly made from cheap oils and synthetic flavoring, truffle oil has little to do with real truffles and is best left to chain brewpubs and carnival food trucks. And while we’re on the subject, there’s no need to shave the real thing half an inch thick onto my pasta, either — it’s usually stale by the time it arrives.
“Caviar”
Another faux luxury that’s gotten out of hand. When you see caviar piled generously onto a plate for less than $60 an ounce, you’re almost certainly eating fish roe, not true caviar. It’s a small distinction, but an important one: painstakingly salt-cured sturgeon roe is caviar; salmon, trout or flying fish roe are simply fish eggs. Both have their place, but they’re not interchangeable. Real caviar is buttery, with tiny, Champagne-like pops and a whisper of salt air. Roe is for sushi — or bait.
Food gimmicks
Salt & Straw’s viral Tacolate — a Taco Bell collaboration pairing cinnamon ancho chile ice cream with a chocolate-coated waffle-cone taco shell and mango jalapeño sauce — was more Franken-creation than revelation. Sonic Drive-In’s Unicorn Dream slush, a cotton-candy concoction crowned with shimmering sugar crystals, whipped cream and popping boba, pushed things firmly into the absurd. Heading into 2026, the appetite for social-media-hyped foods appears to be cooling, with diners gravitating instead toward recognizable ingredients and flavors that don’t require an explainer.
Instagram interiors
Fake greenery walls, oversized cupcakes, indoor swings and neon signs shouting “Mimosa Time” or “You Glow, Girl!” peaked in 2025. In 2026, the mood is shifting toward calmer, more thoughtful spaces that feel lived-in and welcoming, with cozy sofas, conversation corners and vintage jazz drifting through the room.
What are you so done with, and what would you like me, The Press Democrat Dining Editor, to do more of in 2026? Chef one-on-ones? Fast food? Current trends? Tell me at heather.irwin@pressdemocrat.com