Lamb-pistachio pizza and a clarified strawberry Margarita

Top 500 chain restaurant sales slowed again in 2025 as consumers cut back on dining, but sectors like coffee, beverages and snacks and chicken thrived There are a lot of clarified cocktails out there these days.

Mixologists seem to particularly enjoy using milk to curdle and bind with the ingredients’ solids, which are then strained, resulting in pristine-looking drinks with a subtle creamy mouthfeel that they seem to enjoy. That’s what Charlie Szur is doing at Confidant in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he applies the technique to a Strawberry Margarita. There are also a lot of loaded fries, which are eminently adaptable to many restaurant concepts, such as Beyond BBQ in Morrow, Ga., where chef NeVaughn Ross uses thick, curly Sidewinders and his house pulled pork to make an item that’s distinctive and likable.

Tonnato sauce, a Northern Italian condiment that’s trending these days, is a distinguishing characteristic of chef Stathis Antonakopoulos’s beef tartare at Voco Roofbar in New York City — as is the poached-then-fried egg on top — and tomatoes, used in multiple ways, are the highlight of William Kelly’s agnolotti at Gable in Hollywood, California. And in Alys Beach, Fla., at the newest location of Indaco, chef Dakota Wilson is making a lamb sausage pizza that’s finished with pistachios.