We’ve seen a lot of trends come and go since Food & Wine started in 1978. Some are delicious and persistent, such as the staying power of sriracha. Others were … less so. Remember when Olestra was a thing?

Now, as we wrap up 2025, we asked our editors — experts in restaurants, wine, bars, and home cooking — to name the most significant ideas, moments, and movements of the century so far that have reshaped culinary culture. The result: the F&W 25, a definitive list of the ideas, ingredients, and movements that changed the past 25 years of food and drink.

Join us for a nostalgia-filled journey, from Sex and the City’s influence on cupcakes and cocktails to the era of $30 prestige burgers and the ramen renaissance, and see how many of these trends you remember — or how many you wish you could forget.

The 25 most important cocktails of the 2000s

New York City’s pioneering Milk & Honey opened on New Year’s Eve, 1999. In addition to its speakeasy-chic aesthetic and cheeky rules of etiquette, the bar yielded many drinks that have since become required knowledge for bartenders everywhere, such as the Penicillin and the Gold Rush. From San Francisco to Chicago, New Orleans, and beyond, bars broke away from the neon drinks and flavored Martinis of the previous era, and a quarter century later, cocktails like the Naked & Famous, Gin Blossom, Hugo Spritz, and Paper Plane are still mainstays on bar menus across the globe. These are the 25 most important cocktails created in the past 25 years.

25 trends that shaped how we drink

As bars moved away from the sugary, fruit-forward cocktails of the 1990s, craft spirits producers also took the main stage. Smaller whiskey, gin, and vodka producers began to muscle in on the big brands, while tequila and mezcal eventually became a market force to be reckoned with. While a revolution was underway in spirits, everything from coffee to energy drinks underwent a transformation in the 2000s. From the rise of celebrity booze and “White Claw summer” to designer coffee becoming the new fast food, these are the moments that changed how we drink.

The 25 biggest wine trends of the 2000s, from the Burgundy boom to orange wine

Before the 2000s, the word sommelier, if it was recognized at all, conjured images of a haughty restaurant employee that guests tried their best not to look stupid in front of. Wine lists were dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir was still considered an insider grape by many. Across two and a half decades, natural wine, skin-contact whites, and celebrity somms sporting Chuck Taylors became the norm. Here’s how everything changed.

The 25 food trends that defined the past 25 years

Celebrity chefs and social media may feel like they’ve dominated the food conversation over the past two decades. But global communication and the power of the internet have also led to increased visibility of ingredients and food cultures from around the world. Whether it was the rise of plant-based meatsubiquitousness of Sriracha sauce, or normalization of the $30 fine-dining burger, eating in the 2000s has been anything but boring. These are the moments that changed food.

The 25 most important food recipes of the 2000s

While countless amazing meals have been made in the 2000s, there are a few that truly took over the global consciousness, becoming mainstays on restaurant menus and in home kitchens and inspiring devotion (and sometimes exhaustion) in many. From a time when tiny cupcakes were inescapable, crispy brussels sprouts were everywhere, and kale became both a delicious vegetable and national punch line, these recipes influenced almost every kitchen.

The 25 most iconic cultural moments in food

The early 2000s were also a time in which we saw chefs break out from the kitchen and become media superstars in their own right. Many became celebrities as cooking competition shows took to the airwaves — and later the internet — and they founded empires that stretched far beyond the dining room. With that, reckonings came over workplace practices and representation, and today, the landscape of dining and what it means to be a chef is forever changed. From reality TV to The Bearthese are the cultural moments that mattered most.

25 kitchen design trends that took over your living space

Remember Tuscan-chic kitchens? When design skirted the thin line between tastefully rustic and full-on Olive Garden? Or is your kitchen still lined with white subway tiles as a backsplash to a double-sink flex? Kitchen design went through many phases over the past 25 years, as appliances pivoted from textured-white to stainless steel and then back to white again. Appliances were put on display while trash cans were hidden from view, and if you watched enough HGTV, your next remodel was only one episode’s worth of inspiration (and possibly a second mortgage) away.

The 25 kitchen tools and gadgets that changed how we cook

If our cooking spaces were ever-changing, so were the gadgets we filled them with. Technology affected everything in the 2000s, and while the ’80s and ’90s may have seen aesthetic glow-ups slapped on time-tested technology, the past 25 years saw entirely new genres of gear created. Soon you could shout to Google or Alexa for recipe help, blenders became status symbols, and now roughly two-thirds of U.S. homes sport an air fryer. Also, we became obsessed with tools that could turn vegetables into noodles, because why not?

25 restaurant trends that shaped how we dine out

In the 2000s, thanks in part to icons like Gordon Ramsay and José Andrés, chefs increasingly went from restaurant proprietors to sovereigns of their own empires. Beyond the media titans, we saw food trucks become as important as fine dining, molecular gastronomy turning kitchens into science labs, and a complete reinvention of the “fast-casual” category.

The 25 most important restaurant dishes

Who remembers the beet and goat cheese salad? The seared shishito pepper takeover? Bacon on things that didn’t necessarily require bacon or the punch line that avocado toast became? The 2000s have seen a lot of dishes come and go, along with a handful that seemed to jump to every restaurant menu around the country. These are the 25 dishes you definitely remember eating over the past 25 years, whether you’d like to or not.