Ten years ago: Cronut becomes a viral food trend

Food - Ten years ago: Cronut becomes a viral food trend

Yes, the Cronut still exists. Even in a new flavor every month. For December, it's malt caramel, for around seven dollars (6.50 euros) a piece, according to the New York bakery run by star pastry chef Dominique Ansel.

What no longer exists, however, are the long queues. Ten years ago, the introduction of the cronut - half croissant, half donut, with a layer of cream inside and on top - led to such hype that hundreds of people queued outside Ansel's bakery early in the morning to get their hands on one of the coveted pastries, back in 2013 for five dollars. Some of the curls were sold on the internet for many times that amount. You can now buy a cronut at the bakery in Manhattan's trendy Soho district, even in the afternoon.

The rush for the pastry has subsided - but its success has been lasting. The cronut, whose name Ansel has long since patented, became famous worldwide and is now considered the mother of all staged and Instagram-worthy food trends. Since then, ramen burgers, rainbow bagels and countless other mostly briefly hyped offerings have followed - in New York and around the world.

Viral food trends as a target for restaurants

An ex-chef of former US President Donald Trump, for example, triggered a hype with giant milkshakes. These spectacular calorie bombs made from ice cream, milk, syrup and lots of sweets are now even available in Dubai. In Berlin and elsewhere, cruffins (a mixture of croissants and muffins) and croffles (a mixture of croissants and waffles) have been created.

Since the cronut, viral food trends have been the goal of almost every new restaurant business - in the hope of generating a lot of buzz and thus many paying customers and setting themselves apart from the competition, says gastronomy expert Adam Platt from New York Magazine. "Every chef who opens a new restaurant today comes up with one or two dishes that they hope will go viral on Instagram. We call that Instagram bait."

It all started in New York

According to restaurant critics, it is no coincidence that food trends have conquered the world from New York of all places. Running a restaurant business in this city is more difficult and more expensive than elsewhere, says restaurant critic Alan Sytsma from "New York Magazine". "People see it as a way of cementing their legacy - that they made it to New York and have been successful here." The competition is greater, good employees are harder to get and keep and the audience is more demanding than elsewhere.

However, this also means that trends are constantly being born in the metropolis of millions. "Everything is played through and whatever comes through in the end, whatever New Yorkers choose, is sent out into the world. If it's done in New York, then it's officially a trend."

How exactly do such trends come about and what works?

It's a mixture of chance, artificial scarcity, clever marketing - especially online via social media - and the novelty factor. To go viral, the creations ideally need to be novel, very photogenic, relatively simple and not too expensive. Cronut inventor Ansel simply called "New York Magazine" at the time - but was surprised by its success. "I wasn't expecting anything," he told Forbes magazine. "I just wanted to do it for Mother's Day and then it went viral and it was crazy to see."

However, not everything works: Ansel himself has invented numerous other creations since the cronut, including a watermelon ice cream in a piece of real watermelon with dark chocolate seeds, a peach ice cream that becomes a flower when you push it up in the packaging, and a square kiwi ice cream. These creations also spread rapidly on Instagram - but there was no rush like with the cronut.

Criticism

Gourmets and restaurant critics are critical of food trends. Some of the creations are certainly delicious, say Sytsma and Platt from New York Magazine, for example. But they still advise following your own taste and not giving in to every hype: "Don't eat these things, don't take photos of them, don't pay attention to them."

Nevertheless, food trends seem to be unstoppable. New York has just experienced a kind of "Cronut 2.0" with the Suprême, a kind of very photogenic croissant, round and filled with cream of various flavors. Once again, long queues formed outside the Lafayette Grand Bakery in the Noho district of Manhattan and the pastries sold out very quickly. The Suprême, wrote the gastronomy portal TastingTable, was the "hotter and cooler older sister of the cronut".