Trendy Fries: flavorful sauces and bold toppings

By its very nature, street food is edgy, hip, ephemeral.

For restaurants to imitate the experience can be like a businessman wearing a motorcycle jacket — the effort seems contrived. But some dishes translate beautifully onto brick-andmortar menus.

Gaining rock-star status from street food, these casual-yet-bold dishes include such items as hot dogs, tacos and loaded fries.

These flavorloaded- and-layered fries hold great potential for accurate translation from street to restaurant. Fries are safe, familiar and delicious. Add wonderful, savory ingredients and move them from a standard side dish to craveable shareables, late-night snacks, bar-menu favorites. You can even grant them entrée status.

Street-food vendors, hawking mashups like fries topped with Korean barbecue beef, kimchi, green onions and Japanese sweet mayonnaise (Koja Kitchen, Los Angeles), have opened the flood gates of exploration here.

The common element in the growing iterations of loaded fries is the simple potato — a comparatively inexpensive tether to a dish. Whether it is Bacon &Egg Fries served at two-unit Sauce in San Francisco (deviled egg, crispy bacon, portobello, ranch dressing) or Umami Fries at Los Angeles-based Umami Burger (tomato, porcini, miso, herbs), at its core, it’s the potato.

“For operators, potatoes are an inexpensive blank canvas,” says Darren Tristano at Technomic. “For diners, loaded fries are usually cheap and filling.” Combine a low-cost platform with a shoo-in for popularity and craveability, and loaded fries might just present the most profitable trend opportunity for foodservice operators this year.