Not every trend is a good trend: jeans that come pre-ripped. Pencil-thin eyebrows or caterpillar-thick eyebrows. Literally everything from TikTok. But one of the strangest trends can be found in restaurants, and that’s the fashion of serving food on anything but a plate. I understand the motivation: if you want to show that you’re a visionary chef, why not reimagine the very tableware? And to be fair, some of the plate alternatives that restaurants come up with are clever and interesting. But most are, unfortunately, absolutely ridiculous. Want to see what we mean? We’ve collected 40 examples of food being served in a variety of strange implements, from the cool to the baffling to the disgusting.
#1: A Kitchen Sink?
We are starting with an absolute doozy. You can just picture the conversation that led to this. Chef: “You know, a lot of restaurants are now serving food on anything but a plate.” Restaurant owner: “We should do that, but come up with a way to make it uniquely our own.”
Chef: “Well, what hasn’t been done yet?” Restaurant owner: “Honestly, it’s hard to say; I feel like people have done everything but the kitchen sink at this point.” Chef: “It’s perfect!” And this monstrosity was born. Who wants to reach inside a sink to fish their meal out?