When I would scroll through my Instagram account a couple of years ago I could always count on a few familiar compositions guaranteed to elicit a hunger pang — a tomato salad at the season’s peak, an Italian deli sandwich bisected to reveal its contents, an array of fried chicken pieces cooling on a wire rack. Lately, however, these still images have been replaced by reels showing spoons digging into creamy concoctions and loaded forks dripping sauce. It seems like the entire platform has started to gush and ooze. People who film themselves eating burgers often give them a two-handed squeeze first so that molten cheese, pink sauce, and red juices cascade in rivulets down the sides. The food porn yummy shot.
I’m nostalgic for the food photography clichés of times past. Remember the overhead shots of bounteous, messy tables filled with way too many dishes and one hand coming in from the side? The tightly framed plates looking like round pegs in square holes? The char-mottled undersides of pizza crusts? Remember when cooks’ hands cupped bowls?
Now it’s all about the eaters, the people who load impossibly large and gooey bites onto forks, hold them in front of the phone camera and open wide. If they like what they’re chewing well enough, they nod their heads appreciatively. If they love it, they bug their eyes too, or stop for a moment to fall back in their chairs in a state of rapture.
The quesabirria craze of a couple of years ago jump started this development. No static image would do justice to these folded tortillas stuffed with shredded stewed meat and melted cheese that are consumed after dipping in a cup of consommé. You have to show it happening. So people leaned into the cameras, dunked their drippy charges, and made happy faces as they ate.
People who post their experiences in higher end restaurants don’t as often show themselves eating but they zero in on all the spooning, spreading, and pouring action. Restaurants more and more play along. Have you noticed how often meals involve a server finishing a dish with a sauce poured from a cruet? I was eating out recently as a server poured a thick sienna-hued cream onto my fish, and I asked him how often guests asked him to wait so they could film it. “Ninety percent of the time,” he said without missing a beat.
I feel like so many restaurant dishes suffer from this trend. Oysters have become vehicles for glop. Fried chicken has become a vehicle for ooze, particularly sandwiches that have so much gochujang/honey/chili crisp/mayo/kimchi/slaw/whoozit/whatzit sloshing about that they’re impossible to hold, much less wrap your mouth around. I miss the days when sauces were deployed judiciously as enhancers, not the star of the show.
Late-night Tacos
In 2018 the Mexico City chef Enrique Olvera moved his fine-dining restaurant Pujol to a new location and debuted, as one dining option, a taco omakase. Guests sat at a counter as at a sushi bar, and the chefs passed over gourmet taquitos, one by one, in an orchestrated progression. It honestly sounded a little silly at the time, but then I started reading the reports from folks who had tried it and then it sounded amazing.
Cariño, an Uptown restaurant from chef Norman Fenton that opened earlier this year, has brought the format to Chicago. Every Wednesday to Saturday he offers a taco omakase at his seven-seat chef’s counter. The meal begins at 10 p.m. after the guests in the main dining room have concluded their tasting menus and the kitchen staff can turn their attention to hand-grinding salsa in a molcajete and griddling fresh blue and yellow corn tortillas to order.
I found the experience exhilarating. Even though I was a little bleary when I arrived, the second-wind rush lifted me up and never let go. The menu we tried came out in a handful of rapid-fire courses: a couple of brightly seasoned seafood small plates, a crisp/gooey little bean tetela, and an odd but intriguing lamb tartare tostada lay the groundwork for three brilliant tacos. As much as I loved the breaded and fried king crab taco and the A5 Japanese wagyu taco, the simplest was best. Beef suadero fried in its own tallow (think bovine carnitas) came in classic fashion, with cilantro, onion, green salsa, and a squeeze of lime. The meal also included two drinks — from cocktails, to wine, to Jarritos — and the kitchen wraps up precisely at 11 p.m.
Though I loved everything about this experience, especially the vibrancy of the flavors, I should point out that it doesn’t come cheap. Once you factor in service, taxes, and a booking fee, it comes out to about $175 a head. I don’t know about y’all, but that’s a lot for me. Now, if someone were to shamelessly rip off the concept and bring it in under $100, I’m there.