Our 10 Favorite Restaurant Trends of 2022

So many of the meals we experienced while putting together our list of the Best New Restaurants of 2022 felt exciting and entirely fresh. But even at the most unique restaurants, one can’t help but start to notice the similarities, the overlap, the recurring themes—the trends.

It became clear, as we scanned our way from one menu to the next, that QR codes are here to stay. We came nose to nose with the (very delicious) reality that whole fish are making serious headway at a lot of buzzy restaurants. And, man, did we see a lot of disco balls. While there are always grumpy diners who find certain trends obnoxious, most of these developments point to a joyful and delicious future for dining out. Because, actually, disco balls are a lot of fun, and even if it makes our pastry order a little more expensive, a higher tipping standard is a very good thing.

From the proliferation of counter service to the explosion of oversized punch bowls, these are the 10 restaurant trends that stuck out most to BA staffers while visiting restaurants across the country in 2022. Have you noticed them too? —Elazar Sontag, restaurant editor

We can’t get enough of grandma’s dishes.

We’ve all seen a plate we loved at a restaurant and flipped it over in hopes of finding out where it’s from. Usually, the answer is some fancy European ceramist or, if we’re lucky, Ikea. But there’s one type of plate popping up at all sorts of new restaurants that are a little harder to source for our own homes: the grandma plate. They’re vintage plates or bowls with a subtle floral pattern or border that brings a mix-and-match aesthetic to the restaurant table. You know, like an Italian grandma’s set of “special occasion” plates. This decor choice spanned cities and cuisines. They showed up at Charlotte steakhouse Supperland and at New Orleans tropical roadhouse Mister Mao. During a recent visit to the Southern American restaurant Rosie’s in Miami, the grandma plates added just the right amount of homeyness to my already comforting fish and grits. It just might be time to ask your grandmother to add her China collection to the inheritance. —Kate Kassin, editorial operations associate

Skipping the tip is not an option.

We’ve been debating the merits of tipping for a long, long time. But something shifted during the pandemic: Whether you liked it or not, there was absolutely no ignoring the very real labor and skill that goes into restaurant work. Some new restaurants are sidestepping the tipping debate altogether and putting mandatory fees on their menus to help pay staff a living wage. At Los Angeles Filipino restaurant Lasita, a 3.5% fee is added to the bill to support benefits for full-time staff, and a 10% fee added to take-out orders goes directly to the kitchen team. The wine bar Daytrip in Oakland employs a 20% service fee split among staff. At some restaurants that have adopted these sorts of fee models—Lasita included—you can ask to have the charge removed from your bill if you’d rather not opt in. But why would you do that? —Elazar Sontag, restaurant editor

Whole fish are swimming head-on to the American mainstream.

I’ve been eating steamed and fried whole fish at Chinese restaurants for as long as I’ve eaten solid food. When the lazy Susan reached me, I would go straight for the collar and the cheeks. While whole fish has long been a standard offering at restaurants serving certain cuisines, many restaurants in the U.S. have been hesitant to present the head. This year that seemed to change. I can still get my whole fish fix at newcomer Cantonese restaurants like New York’s Bonnie’s or Uncle Lou. But I’ve also found whole fish landing on restaurant tables at New York’s Shukette, where a grilled porgy is served in the cage used to grill it, and at Philly’s Irwin’s, where the grilled fish comes alongside grilled lemons and an earthy salsa verde. I, for one, am head over heels for this development. —Kate Kassin, editorial operations associate

QR codes are here to stay.

I don’t have particularly fond memories of my first run-ins with QR code menus. That was back when Covid was new (remember?) and the idea of touching the same menus as hundreds of other diners was a bit terrifying. It's starting to seems like QR code menus are here to stay—and as it turns out, they can be great. Staff still come over to talk about the food, but having a menu pulled up on my phone as soon as I sit down gives me more time to get my bearings and figure out my game plan. At San Francisco’s Good Good Culture Club, I recently sat on a gorgeous rooftop where, after scanning the restaurant’s menu onto my phone, I was able to choose a cocktail, look up the names of three ingredients I was unfamiliar with, and decide on my entire order. Sure, there’s a real charm to having a weighty, intricately designed paper menu placed on the table. But I’ve started to take the ease and convenience of QR menus for granted. I don’t know what I’d do if they disappeared. —Elazar Sontag, restaurant editor

We’re drinking out of communal punch bowls again.

If I’m being honest, my school never hosted a dance with a punch bowl. I had to learn from pop culture that it was cool, or even admired, to spike the punch. Now that I’m all grown-up, I can have my spiked punch bowl moment at restaurants whenever I want to. At New York’s Wenwen, there’s the Shyboy 4XL, an (extremely) oversized Long Island iced tea served with four straws and topped with a flaming piece of youtiao. At Rolo’s in Ridgewood, Queens, a Scorpion Bowl comes in a blowfish-shaped bowl that serves two to four (read: two), with a black rum and cognac base. It makes each bite of lasagna verde taste that much better. Drinking from a communal bowl with three friends might not quite be CDC-approved, but it’s a lot more thrilling than sharing a pitcher and drinking from my own cup. —Kate Kassin, editorial operations associate

Counter service is the new normal.

Sometimes you want the ritual of full-service dining. The ephemeral bonding with the staff. The passing of actual physical menus (my opinion on the virtues of QR codes differs from my beloved but misguided colleague Elazar). But sometimes you want none of these things. You just want to order all your food in one fell swoop. For these times, there is counter service. Beyond the fast-casual world of baked goods and pizza slices, the counter service model is on display at new cool restaurants where we might’ve expected sit-down service in the past. At Birdie’s in Austin, you’ll wait in a (rather long) line to order and pay up front. But there’s wine to drink while you do so, and by the time you sit down at a picnic table, the stress of menu selection with a gaggle of people waiting behind you is but a memory. There’s your dandelion salad, and your fresh pasta, and your minute steak. The same is true at Cafe Olli in Portland, Oregon, and at Cincinnati’s Cafe Mochiko. This shift is at least in part a response to staffing shortages, but it also feels like a push for more chillness in a deeply unchill world. Whatever the reason, I’m here for it. —Hilary Cadigan, culture editor

Nostalgia-inducing foods are here to quell our (many) anxieties. 

In times of heightened political anxiety (check), economic anxiety (check), and general world-is-burning anxiety (check), we’re not quite sure whether there really are more restaurants leaning into nostalgia and comfort, or if we’re just searching them out more often. Either way, dishes that tap into nostalgia seem to be everywhere at the moment. At Brooklyn’s Gage & Tollner, a refurbished and reimagined version of a steak house that’s been in that location since 1879, (updated) classics still shine: Wedge salads, shrimp scampi, and baked Alaska anchor this menu. At Cambridge, Massachusetts, wine bar Dear Annie, you can pair unique and surprising natural wine with a true classic: grilled cheese. We’re so comfortable and relaxed during these meals that we’re not entirely sure what year it is. These days that feels like a good thing. —Elazar Sontag, restaurant editor

There’s only one dessert on the menu, and you should definitely order it.

There are few things more thrilling than looking over a restaurant’s dessert menu and declaring “We’ll take one of each.” That undertaking immediately becomes more manageable (at least for a party of two) when there’s only one dessert on the menu. Whether it’s because pastry chefs are in short supply or that restaurants have simply decided to focus their efforts on perfecting a single sweet, the one-dessert offering is on the rise. At both locations of Laser Wolf in New York and Philadelphia, a cup of brown sugar soft-serve comes at the end of the meal, right before you feel too full to carry on. At Miami’s paradis books & bread, there’s always one rotating dessert. It may be almond coconut orange cake one week and calamansi curd pie the next. At New York’s Agi’s Counter, that one offering is a New York cheesecake with glazed market strawberries. Deciding what to eat for dinner is enough work as it is—these restaurants have taken care of dessert. —Kate Kassin, editorial operations associate

The hottest restaurant branding? The chef’s grandparents.

Professional chefs have long credited their grandmothers with being their first cooking instructors. But the learned-it-from-my-nana narrative reached its peak this year. Oma’s Hideaway in Portland, Oregon, isn’t just named after chef Thomas Pisha-Duffly’s grandmother; it’s a shrine to her. Oma’s face, unperturbed in bowl cut and glasses, is replicated in the logo that graces each neon paper menu, and the wallpaper is inspired by her Southeast Asian upbringing. In Brooklyn, a black and white photo of chef Sal Lamboglia’s Napolitano grandpa peers out from behind the bar at Cafe Spaghetti, while chef Ayo Balogun’s grandmother watches over the dining room at Nigerian tasting menu spot Dept. of Culture. These elders may be hundreds of miles away or no longer of this world at all, but they certainly aren’t forgotten. —Hilary Cadigan, culture editor

Restaurant bathrooms have everything you need—and more.

Since at least the 2010s, getting up to go pee halfway through a meal has come with a pretty good chance of hearing a soundtrack designed specifically for the bathroom-goer’s experience. Finding much of anything other than cool lighting and good music in most restaurant bathrooms was pretty unusual until recently, though—unless you were somewhere very fancy, or in the oasis of a Hai Di Lao hot pot restaurant’s bathroom, brushing your teeth and spritzing cologne. Increasingly, restaurants are offering both necessities and niceties in their bathrooms: At new fine dining restaurant HAGS in New York’s East Village, the bathroom is fully stocked with butter mints, condoms, and fentanyl test strips. In Oakland, the wine bar Daytrip stocks its bathroom with tampons, Narcan, and fentanyl test strips. In Brooklyn, the Clinton Hill wine bar Place des Fêtes keeps its bathroom well appointed with cute jars featuring Q-tips, tampons, and cotton balls, plus mints. Now when I go missing from my table for a little too long, I don’t make up some excuse about the line being long or having trouble finding the bathroom. I found it right away; I just didn’t want to leave. —Elazar Sontag, restaurant editor