Bret Thorn

🍴 Bret Thorn, Senior Food & Beverage Editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality since 1999, covers food and beverage trends with a podcast, "In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn." He wrote for The New York Sun (2005-2008) and earned a 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award. Before NRN, Thorn lived in Thailand (1992-1997), writing for Manager magazine and Asia Times. He's a Tufts University graduate (magna cum laude), studied at Le Cordon Bleu Paris, and was in Beijing during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. A Disciples d’Escoffier inductee (2014), Thorn resides in Brooklyn, N.Y. Contact him at [email protected] and follow on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

🍗 Twin Peaks Restaurants, under Director Alex Sadowsky, have incorporated Indian flavors into their menu, tracking the trend for five years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects chicken consumption to reach 103.8 pounds per capita in 2025, up from 103.2 pounds in 2024, compared to a decrease in beef consumption from 58.3 pounds in 2024 to 56.1 pounds in 2025. Chicken remained popular during the pandemic, with Americans consuming an average of 96.5 pounds in 2019. Twin Peaks’ chicken tikka offerings, released in August, have seen a near 50% increase in popularity. Technomic identifies chicken curry as the third fastest growing chicken category. The term "curry" traces back to the Tamil word "kari," from South India. Chef James Wozniuk from Makan serves Ayam Goreng with a salted egg yolk sauce, and Tender Greens offers Japanese chicken curry, with the current version reflecting British influence on Japanese cuisine from the late 1800s. Chicken curry-adjacent dishes like the Smoked Blackened Chicken at Shor Bazaar in Hawaiian Gardens, Calif., have also gained popularity.

🍝 Bret Thorn, Senior Food & Beverage Editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality since 1999, has guided F&B trends reporting and won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award. He hosted "In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn" podcast and wrote "Kitchen Dish" for The New York Sun (2005-2008). Thorn, a magna cum laude Tufts University graduate and Phi Beta Kappa member, studied at Le Cordon Bleu and in China, and was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.