The hot restaurant concepts of 2010?

Last week I helped some culinary students flag the differences between John Schnatter and Mickey Rooney.

Unless your cable service was down last summer, chances are high you saw Schnatter trying to give a bundle of cash to the current owner of the Camaro he sold in the ‘80s to enter the restaurant business. Schnatter used the proceeds to convert a section of his father’s bar into a walk-up pizza counter. Literally a closet operation, the venture grew to become Papa John’s, with annual sales exceeding $2 billion. Because of Schnatter’s skill at hatching a concept, he could forget a Camaro and buy General Motors instead.

Mickey Rooney, for those of you who don’t recognize the name, was one of Hollywood’s biggest draws during the 1930s. Indeed, he was the George Clooney of his time, at least in terms of fame and screen appearances. But, astoundingly, his round-hotdog restaurant chain never quite caught on during the ‘70s, even though the product fit so neatly on a circular bun.

Efforts to start a restaurant concept have yielded more train wrecks than the film careers of Pauly Shore and Tom Green, combined. Need I mention the failed attempts of Muhammed Ali, Steven Spielberg, Alice Cooper, Johnny Carson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mike Piazza, to name just a few?

Yet the list of aspirants continues to grow, with names like Richard Branson, Rolling Stone magazine and boxer Julio Cesar Chavez added to the roster just in the last month or so.

Because I’ve witnessed so many crashes and triumphs, I was invited last Tuesday to address a class at New York’s Institute of Culinary Education, an often-overlooked contributor to the city’s phenomenal restaurant scene. My mission was to opine on what separates a Schnatter-ly restaurant venture from the Rooney-esque, something very important to the students because they’re all in the process of brainstorming a concept of their own.

Instead of talking in the abstract and risking a symphony of text-message alerts from the kids’ phones, I handicapped what I believe will be the Hot Restaurant Concepts of 2010.

My picks aren’t new to the scene at all. Rather, these are concepts likely to enter the mainstream next year, even if they no longer elicit oohs and aahs from the black-dressed sport diners on the coasts.

Here’s the list, along with a few thoughts.

Places specializing in street foods: This is a surer thing than Tiger Woods having his text messages screened for the next month. Indeed, I can’t understand why it wasn’t on all the forecasts that were pecked out of foodie keyboards in recent weeks.

Street food certainly fits the times. Peasant fare sold in bazaars or along busy thoroughfares is simple, and simplicity (or its fellow traveler, back to basics) was on virtually every list.

The ingredients tend to be fresh—another check mark on the trend inventory—and inexpensive, which holds the price to a level consistent with the current Age of Thrift.

Foods patterned after the street fare of Third World nations also tend to be grilled, roasted or boiled—relatively healthful prep methods that fit the sometimes contradictory goals of being flavorful and better for you.

Finally, we’ve already seen street foods snag interest from a few of the industry’s Mount Olympus set—gods and goddesses like Rick Bayless, Susan Feniger, David Chang, and Ming Tsai. The trend has even merited its own Flavors of the World conference, the foodie equivalent of the Burning Man Festival.

Confidence in this one is high.

Taquerias: A sub-set of the street-food craze, authentic tacos are drawing sufficient attention from big-name chefs and restaurateurs to merit their own Hot Trend designation. Celebrity proponents include Traci Des Jardins, Bayless, and Paul Kahan, to name just a few.

As I’ve noted in this space before, the interest from fine-dining chefs makes you wonder if taquerias will supplant burger joints as their low-end concept of choice.

Burger restaurants: It’s still on my list, but only because of bandwagon-jumping. The ranks of patty specialists will undoubtedly grow, but I bet we start to see some wheezing in this sector, or at least at its pricier end. There’s just not sufficient differentiation, and the novelty of a burger flipped by a Michelin-caliber chef is going to wear off.

This is my pick of Fade of the Year, largely because of the differentiation issues.

Gastro pubs: Indeed, why couldn’t these places co-opt whatever pent-up demand is left for high-end burgers?

But gastro pubs offer so much more, including comfort and casualness, two positives that aren’t going to lapse from fashion anytime soon. They’re also prime proponents of the high-caliber beer trend, which shows every appearance of having legs.

I know, I know: Gastro pubs have been around for years. But watch for a proliferation, particularly in areas inland from the current strongholds of Chicago, Los Angeles and Minneapolis. They’ll become the choice of indulgence.

Then again, maybe I’m prejudiced. Gastro pubs are the trend I’d most like to see catch fire in 2010, speaking as a consumer.

Restaurant trucks: We’ll undoubtedly see more chefs serving from a wheeled kitchen next year, though I’m far less certain of this trend’s staying power.

Right now, there’s considerable appeal to turning the key on a new truck concept. Consumers like the convenience and typically lower prices of a mobile operation. Operators appreciate the reduced overhead and start-up costs, which in turn allow them to keep their menu prices in check.

But I can’t help but wonder if novelty figures large in the appeal that was evident in 2009. Once you’ve tried the sardine truck, are you really going to build your night around it? And what about the yearning for a dining environment, even if it’s just a table and a chair?

Most of the trucks also specialize in a particular menu item, and history has shown us that a one-trick pony has a tough time in this business. Consider such flashes as soup, muffin, croissant and frozen yogurt concepts. Most were either co-opted or abandoned by a clientele that wanted more of a selection.

The jury’s still out here, though a proliferation of kitchens on wheels should prompt a verdict.

Authentic-food chains: This is a sleeper, an up-and-comer that’s not getting as much attention as, say, Spanish restaurants, or gourmet fried-chicken places.

Perhaps the potential trend is still going unnoticed, a reflection of its limited exposure to date. There are really two proponents of note: Seasons 52, Red Lobster’s high-end little sister, and True Food Kitchen, a one-off that P.F. Chang’s is carefully studying as a possible expansion vehicle.

Both feature seasonal, fresh fare with healthful overtones. Seasons 52, for instance, could boast that its entrees are under 500 calories.

But it downplays that plus to stress the integrity and freshness of its fare. Seasons 52 is the chain embodiment of the yearning for off-the-farm ingredients you don’t have to feel guilty about consuming.

True Food Kitchen, a brainchild of Phoenix restaurateur Sam Fox, goes one step further by featuring organic and natural ingredients. It professes to “nourish body, mind and spirit,” which is music to the yoga-and-couples-massage set.

The brakes on this one are the logistical challenges—finding enough seasonal fare of consistent quality, and doing it at a cost that translates into reasonable prices. But it’ll come, especially as medium-sized agriculture continues to make a comeback.

Whim restaurants: This is a forecast virtually peculiar to me, but I’m more convinced than ever there’s something here.

As I mentioned in an earlier posting, “whim restaurants” is my term for the ventures of high-end chefs who want to do something creative, small scale, and highly spur-of-the-moment. Such luminaries as Thomas Keller and Tom Colicchio are embracing these home-style niche places as a way of featuring the dishes they like to cook and eat themselves, with menus determined no farther in advance than their home dinner plans.

Since I last wrote about Keller’s Ad Hoc and Colicchio’s plan for an extension of his Tom: Tuesday Dinner into a full-scale restaurant, several other whim ventures have come to light. Michael Bauer of the San Francisco Chronicle devoted a blog installment to the phenomenon, though he didn’t use my label.

Leslie Brenner, in a blog for The Dallas Morning News’ website, described a whim sort of place, but used the term “guerilla restaurant.” She described a place envisioned by local restaurateurs that will be used to raise funds for charities. The hours and nights of service will be limited, and the chef will vary as readily as the menu does.

The concept may still sound alien to the U.S. market, but it’s already become established in the U.K., where the term “pop-up restaurant” is being stretched to cover places that chefs are opening to indulge their culinary whims of the moment.

My crystal ball has some static

Call me old-fashioned, but there’s something perverse about running Christmas commercials during World Series broadcasts. Marketers are so determined to get a jump on the all-important sales season that we can only hope they’re flogging gift ideas for this year’s holidays, not 2010’s.

It shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that the year-end prognosticators are breaking out the tea leaves and animal entrails a bit earlier this year. It’s only Dec. 1, but at least seven lists of next year’s restaurant trends have already been divined and released by wise seers.

They vary greatly, to a degree I intend to explore here when the forecast tally climbs to 10, or probably sometime tomorrow morning. But suffice it to say we’re heading into a year where restaurants will simplify their menus, use more animal innards, and hawk fried chicken the way they ballyhooed sliders in 2009. Yes, fried chicken is widely expected to be the next pork belly, or the new bacon, depending on which forecast you read.

What surprises me on first flush is how few noted the two trends that will certainly be on my predictions list, which is on the to-do list right after “Finish leftover cranberry sauce.” Perhaps that’s because they’re not really great leaps from what was happening in ’09.

Chefs and restaurants at all price levels will continue to showcase burgers, to be sure. But, as a colleague from Restuarants & Institutions noted in a recent Twitter posting, tacos are replacing burgers as the low cost/high flavor item that’s being taken up by fine-dining chefs. Rick Bayless is featuring them at Xoco, Paul Kahan is showcasing his riff at Big Star, and today brought news that Traci Des Jardins will extend her early lead in the taqueria wave by opening a second Mijita in San Francisco.

The other prediction is more of a stretch, though there is some evidence to support my supposition. I think we’re going to see the opening next year of what, for lack of a better term, I’m calling whim restaurants—places were chefs can forego a set menu and instead indulge their creativity with whatever’s seasonably available and they feel like cooking. It’s sort of like being invited over to their home for dinner.

It’s exactly what Thomas Keller is doing to great effect at his Ad Hoc in the Napa Valley, or close to what Tom Colicchio has attempted with Tom: Tuesday Dinner, one of the more creative responses we saw last year to the economic freefall. When private-room bookings tanked at Colicchio’s Craft in New York City, the chef turned one of his function spaces in a restaurant-within-a-restaurant twice a month that he called Tom: Tuesday Dinner. The hook was that he’d plan the dinner and cook it himself while you watched, just as you might at the home of a friend. Except in considerably posh surroundings, with a polished staff waiting on you.

Tom: Tuesday Dinner was only open on two non-successive Tuesdays per month. Today Colicchio told Eater NY that he plans to open a restaurant next year that will use the same approach as the limited-time Tom: Tuesday. He suggested that the menu might not change nightly, a result of what he learned with Tuesday Dinner. He explained to Eater that he and his staff needed some time to master each dinner roster. Yet it was all for naught because then the menu would change. So they decided to stay with a menu for at least two successive Tuesday sessions, he recounted.

It remains to be seen if other chefs follow those two kitchen gods in developing concepts where they can indulge their creativity as the spirit moves them.

Fortunately, with probably a few dozen more forecasts to go, we may get an indication as to whether it will happen in 2010.

Colicchio, Orman, valet parking & other tidbits

News tidbits have been piling up in my Miscellaneous folder like coffee grounds at the bottom of a barista trainee’s espresso. Indulge me as I review a few restaurant-industry developments that might’ve slipped past you in recent days:

Chicago wants standards for restaurant valets: An ordinance passed Tuesday by the City Council would require valet companies serving restaurants to provide enough lot parking for 15% of a capacity crowd’s cars. The measure was pushed through, after being toned down from a 25%-of-capacity requirement, to combat what government officials have dubbed fly-by-night valets—concerns that go into business with nothing more than a few matching windbreakers for the attendants. They merely double-park cars on the street, creating a hazard. Other areas have taken aim at the same problem with proposals to mandate insurance as well as off-street facilities.

Suze Orman leaves restaurants steamed: The quirky personal-finance guru has tossed a hornet’s nest into restaurant management offices from coast to coast by urging consumers to forego dining out for at least a month. The advice is one of the core recommendations of her new book, “2009 Action Plan,” which aims to help readers weather the times. It also urges them not to spend anything for a day, and not to use their credit cards for a week.

Some members of the industry expressed dismay and disbelief that the popular TV figure would issue such advice when the restaurant industry is reeling (this week’s standout casualties in New York alone: The Plaza Hotel’s Palm Court, Ruby Foo’s and Fiamma). I’m sympathetic, but dining out is not a patriotic duty.

China gives U.S. brands the finger with new piracy mall: If you lament the homogenization of world culture, consider the retailing concept that’s reportedly about to open in the People’s Republic. Among the establishments shoppers can peruse: McDnoalds, Bucksstar Coffee, a fried-chicken place called KLG, and Pizza Huh. After having a meal, they could continue their hunt for the best price on Adidos or Dama sneakers.

Those aren’t typos. The place’s schtick is to offer knock-offs of copyrighted brands without the usual nod and a wink. And this is all out in the open, completely on the up-and-up, though U.S. restaurant brands may have a decidedly different opinion.

Tom Colicchio has another big idea: Regular readers will know I regard the New York chef’s recent brainstorm, Tom: Tuesday Dinner, as a more innovative idea than anything that’s come out of Detroit since the minivan. Now, according to the blog site Eater.com, he’s followed up that brilliant stroke of with a new marketing venture: Damon: Frugal Friday.

Damon is Damon Wise, the chef de cusine of Colicchio’s Craft restaurant. Every Friday beginning tomorrow, Wise will develop a one-day menu of items priced under $10. According to promotional information cited by Eater, the dishes will fall into eight categories, ranging from the familiar (salads, small pizzas, cheese plates) to the eyebrow-raising (“food in a jar,” “meat on a stick”). The materials cite such examples as crispy pig ear, deviled egg salad, and caper berries and piquillo marmalade.

Like Tom: Tuesday Dinner, the new special-night meal will be served in one of Craft’s private dining rooms. With the downturn in New York’s party business, it’s a smart way to put vacant space into money-generating use.

Chipotle is heading abroad: After poking a toe into a foreign market with the opening of a lone store in Toronto, the college students’ cult favorite is jumping across the pond. The company disclosed this week that it will develop a single restaurant in London as a possible beachhead to European expansion. Since the 800-unit chain doesn’t franchise here, it’s unlikely to license overseas. It’s a shame that the company isn’t still a half-sister to Pret a Manger, the all-natural grab-and-go chain that, like Chipotle, once counted McDonald’s as an owner. The two might be compatible partners, and Pret owns London.

Starbucks offers to caffeinate those who give back: The coffee giant continues to play to the socially minded with a new promotion keyed to Obama’s inauguration. The President-Elect has asked every American to volunteer their time for the public good next Monday. Agree to do your part, Starbucks announced yesterday, and there’ll be a free tall coffee waiting for you afterward.

Meanwhile, some media have reported that Starbucks is about to announce an arrangement with MSNBC whereby the cable channel’s live coverage of the inauguration will be simulcast within the coffee chain’s 650 U.S. stores.

Tom Colicchio's slam dunk

Chef Tom Colicchio seems to have discovered a form of kryptonite against the irresistible forces of recession. His idea of turning space within his celebrated Craft into a two-days-a-month private restaurant where he does the cooking has only been put to the test three times. But the 32-seat restaurant-within-a-restaurant is selling out “five or 10 minutes” after the reservations blackout is lifted for upcoming dinners, Colicchio said today on theCBS News program Sunday Morning. That’s at a fixed price of $125 to $175 per person, excluding wine and other beverages.

On the night when the CBS camera crew dropped in, Colicchio was getting the full $175 a head. That’s $5,600 on a fall Tuesday, just for the food.

The former Grammercy Tavern chef and partner explained that there are people in New York who’ll always have that kind of money. And, he asserted, they’re actually getting a value for what they’re paying.

The special service is called Tom: Tuesday Dinner, and is offered every other Tuesday. Given the success of the program, the Rolls Royce set will soon have its pick of high-ticket meals offered on a limited basis by celebrity chefs.