Menu maven Nancy Kruse shares her take on emerging and evergreen food trends

Menu guru Nancy Kruse, who writes the State of the Plate column for FSD sister publication Restaurant Business, keeps a close watch on trends in chain and independent restaurants.

She's seeing that several favorites that gained popularity in the last two years—like chicken sandwiches and cauliflower—are still going strong, showing up with global flavor twists. And burgers and pizza will always be platforms for creativity with broad appeal. Kruse believes that the more familiar an item, the more adaptable it is for innovation.

Nancy Kruse

But forward-thinking culinarians are playing around with less familiar ingredients and flavors, taking vegetables to new heights, exploring the potential of food texture and smoke and elevating staples, like butter, with chef-inspired touches. Listen as Kruse talks about the mega trends and emerging trends impacting menus now.

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Also, we are now on Alexa. Log into your Amazon account, look for “Menu Feed podcast” to enable the skill. Once it’s enabled, all you need to do to listen is say, “Alexa, play ‘Menu Feed.’”