Superfoods. Ramen. Avocado toast. The 2000s have been full of food trends and, fortunately for us, Jax diners & restaurants have welcomed several. Always keen on keeping our fingers on the pulse of the local culinary scene, we broke down the top trends making their mark, from stunning interior design to creative spins on dining classics.

Fermented Anything

Thanks to their detoxifying and digestive benefits, fermented foods are a healthy lifestyle trend, as well as a food fad. Of course, adding cheese to the mix might negate some of the healthful benefits—but it certainly adds to the flavor. The Zaat pizza (pictured) at Sun-Ray Cinema is the perfect combo of tangy and savory, topped with red sauce, cheese, and kimchi—plus a sprinkling of spirulina (dried seaweed) and a fried egg.

For a more pure take on fermented eats, locals turn to pickle purveyor Olive My Pickle. The company, which pops up at local farmers markets, is known for their standout olives and pickles, but there’s something to be said about the other fermented vegetable offerings. Green tomatoes, okra, and spicy green beans all receive a transformed flavor after resting in brine for their allotted amount of time.

Of course, you can’t talk fermentation without mentioning kombucha, the vinegary beverage with a cult-like following. Local company Gnarbucha crafts its version from sweet tea and a culture of yeast and bacteria, with flavors including blueberry lemonade and Atlantic peach. Find them at the Neptune Beach Farmers Market or on tap around town at establishments such as Silver Cow in Murray Hill.

Family Style 

Shared-plate dining solves one dilemma of eating out with a crowd—it allows everyone to try multiple dishes and is often a more convivial way to dine. The South knows how to cook for a crowd, and Beach Road Chicken Dinners is the original Jacksonville staple of family style. All meals start off with individual bowls of slaw and are followed by plates filled with fried chicken and endless sides—fries, mashed potatoes, gravy, rice, creamed peas, and biscuits. Pass everything around and as plates empty they keep it coming. Just don’t forget the hot sauce and honey. For a take on family style that’s a bit different in the American South, there’s Timwah Dim Sum, off Baymeadows Road. Here, carts are rolled to the table filled with trays of dumplings and other small Cantonese specialties. There are two carts, one for steamed items and another for those baked or fried. Carts ferry most any dish on the menu, from steamed BBQ pork buns to stuffed jalapeños with shrimp. Best of all, these rolling buffets never stop making their rounds.

Umami

The so-called “fifth taste” (behind sweet, sour, salty and bitter), umami is characteristic of unctuous, savory dishes—broths, mushrooms, and the like. At GangNam Korean Restaurant, Pajeon (a pan-friend seafood pancake) offers an umami-rich take on an omelette, with hints of shrimp, squid, fish, and green onion. Black Sheep’s miso-glazed eggplant has umami in spades, thanks to a pungent glaze atop an already rich vegetable. And then there are anchovies, which perhaps best demonstrate umami-ness. At España, in downtown Fernandina Beach, diners can order a whole plate of them, served chilled and marinated in olive oil, vinegar and parsley.

Street-Food Inspired Dishes

2018 was the year street food got its chance to shine, with tempura, kabobs, and dumplings cropping up on even reservations-only establishments. Locally, there are a handful of eateries dishing up authentic street-side eats. Mariana’s Grinds on Southside serves true handhelds from its roots in the Mariana Islands (Guam, Saipan, Tinian, and Rota). Think Spam musubi, lumpia, traditional Chamorro empanadas, BBQ sticks and shrimp patties. The menu is filled with other authentic dishes, but it might be difficult to eat oxtail stew or a whole fried snapper on the street using just one’s hands. At Hawker’s in Five Points, the focus is on fare traditionally served from hawker stalls, with an extensive small plates menu running the gamut from Korean octopus skewers to fluffy steamed baos wrapped around roast duck. Other favorites include the roti canai served with a curry dipping sauce, dim sum crunchy balls, and stir-fried bean sprouts.

Sell-Out Special

If you don’t arrive early to Peony Asian Bistro—tucked inside a nondescript shopping plaza on Old St. Augustine Road—chances are you’ll miss out on the restaurant’s famous Peking Duck platter. Diners can opt for a half- or whole-roasted bird, which comes with a pile of pillowy bao buns (the perfect complement to the duck’s crispy, crackling skin).

Inventive Ramen

Japanese noodle soups have made a name for themselves on First Coast menus, with a slew of ramen shops opening in the past year alone. Fortunately for local diners, each is a little different. At Gilbert’s Social, ramen gets a Southern twist courtesy of smoked ham hock broth, pulled pork, baby kale (but still includes the traditional Japanese accompaniments like shrimp cake, roasted nori and radish). DOMU, at the St. Johns Town Center, offers a refreshing twist on the hearty dish with its cold, brothless ramen with corn, torched tomato, and sesame vinaigrette. The tonkotsu ramen at Crane in Five Points combines a pork bone broth with pork belly, wood-ear and enoki mushrooms, a soy-marinated egg, black garlic oil and scallions. Still hungry? Karai’s house ramen comes with a rich, spicy broth, Japanese hot sauce, ground beef, and all the toppings (scallions, onion, garlic).

Coffee-Soda Hybrids 

Those looking for a buzz have found it in the mix of cola and java that’s cropped up on grocery store shelves and at boutique coffee shops alike. Locally, Bold Bean’s mixture of Ting, a Jamaican grapefruit soda, and a shot of expresso manages to be both refreshing and offer a jolt. Show Pigeon Coffee—a roaming coffee bar that sets up shop at the Hotel Palms in Atlantic Beach on weekends—combines iced coffee with ginger beer and lime for their take on a Dark & Stormy.

Rustic Breads

Amidst the many trendy breads on the market these days (low carb! gluten-free!) Community Loaves offers the tried and true. The Murray Hill bakery turns out fresh loaves of sourdough daily, made using naturally occurring yeast and lacto-bateria which, combined with their long fermentation time, leads to a more traditional bread. They’ve got every shape imaginable, from baguette to bagel—all ideal vehicles for a sandwich, a spread or even eaten solo with just a slather of butter.

Creative Spin on a Classic

While commonly advertised by wooden signs lining country roads, boiled peanuts are given a new level of sophistication at Bellwether Downtown. Here, the chili pepper house-boiled peanuts come with plenty of kick, and a bit of added crunch from scallion and cilantro. It’s impossible to eat just one, although after taking down a bowl-full one will need to request extra napkins. Another Deep South classic comes in the form of pimento cheese—a spreadable treat that’s as delicious on crackers as it is on a sandwich. It’s hard to go wrong with the melange of mayo, cheese, and pimentos, but Barrett’s PimChee offers several new versions of the Southern mainstay. The small-batch pimento cheese created by Jack Barrett (a former bartender at Black Sheep) includes freshly grated cheddar and comes in a variety of flavors: Bacon, Spicy Thai Chili, Old Bay and Sriracha among them. Great for sandwiches, yes, but equally addictive as an accompaniment to potato chips. Available locally at Grater Goods.

Specialty Toast

Australian millionaire and property mogul Tim Gurner went viral this year when he suggested millennials can no longer afford to buy homes due to their pricey avocado toast habit. Whether or not that’s true remains to be seen, but fancy toast is more popular than ever. Locally, there are several places serving up the best thing since, well sliced bread. The Local’s “Local Toast” adds creamy goat cheese to the standard avo toast, topping it with black sesame seeds and a sunny-side-up egg. Brew Five Points takes their toast to the next level with a dessert dubbed “Forever in Blue Jeans,” topped with tahini peanut butter, banana, dark chocolate shavings, pecans, and agave nectar. And at Southern Roots Filling Station, The Stanti comes with an odd-but-enticing combo of peanut butter, tofu egg salad, avocado, sprouts and sriracha.

Superfoods

Once relegated to the post-yoga and spin class crowd, superfoods (ingredients that pack a nutritional punch) are finding their way to even mass chain menus. Locally those doing them best focus on the purest ingredients. Vitality Bowls’ Superfood Bowl blends acai, kale, and fruit, and tops it with banana, blueberries, cacao nibs and honey. At Downtown fast-casual joint Super Food & Brew, spicy poke bowls come with sushi rice, raw ahi tuna, carrots, cabbage, edamame and seaweed, for an extra dose of healthy fat.

Home-made Pasta

In a world increasingly reliant on the pre-made and quick serve, it’s becomes an almost- religious experience to indulge in fresh, handmade noodles. Take Terra & Acqua’s Lobster Ravioli—pillowy, al dente pasta stuffed with lobster, bell pepper and herbs, and tossed in a lobster brandy cream sauce. At Taverna in San Marco house-made fettuccine gets the Italian grandmother treatment, served with a simple tomato cream sauce and fresh basil. Mama mia, that’s good!

Plus-Sized Pizza

Somewhere in between a pizza and a calzone lies Picasso Pizzeria’s stuffed Italian, a creation loaded with salami, pepperoni, hot capicola, provolone, mozzarella, and parmesan cheeses. What makes it stand out is what comes next, when the toppings are covered with a layer of crust sprinkled with additional parm. It’s the only pizza on the menu that requires 40 minutes to bake. It’s arguable that pizza and wings are the perfect combination. V Pizza must have taken this into consideration when they devised their chicken wing pizza, a crust topped with V’s acclaimed wings (marinated in fresh lemon, rosemary, fresh garlic, and extra virgin olive oil), shredded off the bone and accompanied by caramelized onions, gorgonzola, and fresh mozzarella. Now that’s amore.

Upgraded Fast Food

Recent years have seen even award-winning chefs turn from fancy, white tablecloth meals to crave-worthy takes on comfortable dishes. And what could provide more comfort than a fast food restaurant? In St. Augustine, Burrito Works Taco Shop’s UFO Taco offers an upgraded interpretation on the Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme. Diners can select their filling (chicken, beef, pork, veggie, fish, or shrimp) and the preparation (the works or Baja style). Either choice includes a soft tortilla sealed with a thin pile of shredded cheese, grilled to guarantee an additional crunch. For an extra tasty take on an American classic, BLK SHP @ intuition’s Intuition Burger is as standard as it gets: an all-beef patty, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a (you guessed it) sesame seed bun. What sets it apart is the quality of the ingredients—lightyears away from what you’d find in the drive-thru.

Grownup Kids’ Meal 

You can’t really go wrong with a couple slices of American cheese squished and melty between slices of white bread. But if you were to create an adult-friendly twist on the childhood classic, it would probably look like the Happy Grilled Cheese’s California Melt: three varieties of cheese, turkey, bacon, tomato, and avocado, pressed between bread. Add a side of homemade tomato soup for dunking. Cap it off with an ice cream sundae, and you’ve created the perfect kid- and adult-pleasing meal. Restaurant Doro’s sundae comes with house-made vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and whipped cream—but the cherry on top, so to speak, comes in the form of candied peanuts.

Whiskey Selection

Whiskey has found itself amidst a new golden age and, while it’s not exactly trend-setting to offer a nice selection of bourbons, there are some local watering holes taking it to another level. The Barrel Room at the Omni Amelia Island Resort is constructed with poured cinder block and a reclaimed pallet board roof covered by natural earth, which mimics the basement environment in which aging barrels are traditionally held. The contents of the room’s 36 barrels changes often, but the resort’s most popular cocktail, Palmetto Honey Bourbon, is always on offer. Down in Palm Valley, Valley Smoke BBQ has an entire library devoted to the libation, complete with comfy chairs, ambient lighting, and shelves of rare and small-batch bourbons. But perhaps the true pioneer to make local whiskey-lovers’ dreams come true was Mojo No. 4 in Avondale, which contains one of the state’s largest curated whiskey collections. Pappy van Winkle, anyone?

Veg-Centric Dishes

Vegetarians know that, all too often, meatless dishes are an afterthought on restaurant menus. Not so at Orsay, which offers veggies in spades in the spring vegetable shepherd’s pie: a crispy potato crust, truffle oil, and a variety of vegetables including roasted mushrooms, pearl onions, and spring squash. Matthew’s Restaurant also makes ordering dinner easy for vegetarians with a fried eggplant “steak” served alongside veggie fettuccini made from zucchini and squash and sweet carrot purée.

Inspiring Interiors

When Cowford Chophouse finally opened in 2017, it helped bring luxury back to Downtown Jax, thanks to a gold and marble-clad champagne and caviar bar, personal wine lockers, and a rooftop lounge. Dining at Cowford is an experience, right down to the tabletops (the design of which mimics the flow of the St. Johns River). Thankfully, it isn’t completely over-the-top. That aforementioned caviar, for instance, comes served with homemade tater tots. On the cozier end of the interior spectrum lies Town Hall, the kind of place where you could wile away the better part of an evening with a plate of duck fat cornbread and a bottle of rosé. The food is excellent but the experience is made even better by the fact that the space is appointed with comfortable couches, warmly hued artwork, and thoughtful design touches, such as outlets at every high-top table in the bar area (perfect when your phone needs a charge).

Picture-Perfect Potty

It might not be your first thought when selecting a place to dine, but a first-rate powder room can make or break an evening out. At Rue Saint Marc, restrooms are thoughtfully appointed with octagonal tiles on the floor and wood accents. The bathroom at Bistro Aix is a stone-cold stunner, too, with its floor-length stall doors (ideal for privacy) and mood lighting. As for great selfie bathrooms, Riverside has them in spades. At Root Down in Five Points, bar-goers line up to take selfies at the mirror wall, while the Brew bathrooms (with walls painted floor-to-ceiling in murals by the Milagros Art Collective) are nearly as the well-known as the coffee bar’s beverages.

Sweet & Savory

As counterintuitive as it may be, two contradictory flavors can combine to create one immensely satisfying dish. Good Dough’s Fried Chicken Doughwich certainly fits the bill. The Doughwich offers the best of both worlds, taking a piece of buttermilk-marinated and crispy-fried chicken and topping it with sour pickles, before drizzling it with house-made honey butter and sandwiching it between a glazed yeast donut. It’s a knife-and-fork affair, and one well worth the calories.

Sustainable Seafood 

In a world where large portions of the ocean and its resources are overexploited, it’s important to know that the seafood you eat comes from a sustainable source. In Neptune Beach, The Fish Company emphasizes sustainability in dishes like local shrimp and grits and piccata-style fresh catch. Mayport’s Safe Harbor Seafood Market & Restaurant is a leader in the sustainable catch movement and its shrimp basket is a definitive hit, served with fries, hush puppies, cocktail sauce, and a side of slaw. At the Sawgrass Marriott Resort & Spa, Vernon’s showcases fresh from Florida seafood in a number of entrées (think spicy lobster with beluga lentils and whole roasted fish with fried artichokes and burnt lemon).

Envelope Pushers

There’s a growing crop of Northeast Florida chefs thinking outside the box with their culinary creations. And that’s a very good thing. In St. Augustine, Llama has a knack for dramatically plating their Peruvian-style dishes. Their anticuchos—marinated beef hearts—are served skewered under of a dome of smoke until the server removes the glass, creating a sight to remember and a touch of theater. At Salt, located in The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island, deft kitchen work is apparent in dishes such as yellowfin tuna, with lotus root and tempura pears, to Scottish salmon (complete with leek bread puddng, speck ham, and a 63-degree egg). Not far away in Fernandina Beach, Burlingame offers innovative takes on classic dishes. A Caprese salad, for instance, offers the same flavors one would expect, but with a unique twist in the form of tomato confit, cucumber, watermelon, and pine nut granola. Bravo, chefs. Bravo!

Insta-Worthy Eats

The social-media savvy know that if it didn’t show up on Instagram, it basically didn’t happen. These days, half the fun of eating something extraordinary is showing it off—at least, that’s what the kids say. Visitors to Snowgenix would be hard-pressed to take a bad picture of the shaved ice creations on offer. Light and fluffy, the ice comes in different flavors with syringes filled with additional toppings like condensed milk. At Three f(x), diners will want to film a short video while their ice cream is mixed and frozen in front of them—the flavors and add-ins are up to the one who orders and the options are endless (think candies, fruits, chocolate, and the like).

From Scratch Condiments 

Ketchup is an American mainstay. Countless dining tables are topped with a bottle of Heinz. But there are a handful of Jax eateries crafting their own toppings. At Moxie Kitchen + Cocktails, high quality ingredients go toward creating upscale takes on condiment faves, such as green tomato ketchup, ranch dressing and barbecue sauce. At Ice Plant in St. Augustine, house-made spicy mustard is the real star of the hot pretzel bread appetizer—the bread serving as the mere vehicle for the addictive “sauce” to reach your mouth.

Deconstructed Sandwiches

Deconstruction—the act of breaking apart dishes that are typically combined—was once reserved for sophisticated, chef-driven establishments. Today, the trend has made its way to casual eateries like The Bread & Board, which serves both traditional sandwiches and boards designed to highlight the individual components. Take the grilled shawarma-style chicken board (pictured), which comes with the aforementioned chicken plus sides of tomato-parsley salad, tzatziki, and shredded romaine.

Local Meat Sources

Icreasing numbers of food recalls and salmonella maks it ever more important to know where exactly your meat is coming from. In Palatka, Black Hog Farm allows locals to order chicken, beef, and pork directly from their farm. Their meat can also be found at restaurants all around Jacksonville including: Orsay, Smoked, Crane Ramen, Black Sheep, and Preserved. For those who want to pick and choose their own filets, there’s Pinegrove Market & Deli.  The butcher shop-cum-deli offers fresh cuts of meat like New York strip or pork ribs, as well as more than 20 specialty sandwiches, all created with hand-cut meats.