Caviar on Doritos? TikTok loves it. Chefs, not so much

By Emily Heil

Caviar - something we might imagine belonging to the crystal-and-silver-laden dinner tables of oligarchs or the cocktail parties of one-percenters - is suddenly popping up far from those rarefied spaces.

Bars are garnishing drinks with it. People are doing caviar bumps, licking the orbs off the backs of their hands like college kids downing salt before tequila shots.

On TikTok, 20-somethings in sweatshirts are devouring it at their kitchen counters.

And in one of the most unlikely juxtapositions, they're dolloping it on Doritos, the junk food famous for leaving a tell-tale dusting of neon-orange powder on a binger's fingers.

The culinary mash-up of high and lowbrow might be familiar, and caviar-on-everything isn't even new, but this particular trend can be traced to Danielle Zaslavsky, a TikTok influencer who has become known as the platform's "caviar queen". (It helps that her family runs the retailer Marky's Caviar.)

Last month, she posted a video trying out the snack, which she credited to her brother, piling Kaluga imperial gold atop a chip and declaring it "the effing bomb".

The video has been viewed more than 1.3 million times and prompted plenty of others to follow suit, many crediting Zaslavsky for the inspiration.

The proliferation and democratisation of caviar probably has a few roots: A currently fashionable aesthetic is one of attainable decadence after a couple of years of deprivation.

And there's the fact that farm-raised caviar has given the category more affordable options, although the good stuff (think osetra and beluga) can still be eye-bogglingly pricey.

Whatever caviar on Doritos says about the cultural and economic moment, the more pressing question is simple: Does it taste good?

I asked some top chefs, who are no strangers to caviar, what they thought of the trend. The consensus was a thumbs down - with an asterisk.

Eric Ripert, the chef and owner of Le Bernardin in New York, said the intense flavour of the chip would probably overwhelm the caviar, which typically has a milder profile.

"The Dorito is not going to enhance the caviar," he said. "The caviar might improve the Dorito, though."

And he noted that one of caviar's best attributes - its pleasantly sea-like salinity - would be overshadowed by the accompaniment. "It's salt on salt," he said.

Robert Wiedmaier, the chef and owner of Marcel's in Washington, where caviar is on the menu, is of the same mind - particularly if you're talking about a pricey variety.

"What a waste," he said. "When I'm eating caviar, I want to taste the caviar, not the chemicals or whatever they put on those chips."

Both, though, took a "you do you" attitude. "If you're talking about doing it with inexpensive paddlefish with your buddies, and it sounds good to you, go right ahead," Wiedmaier said.

"Even if it sounds like bananas on a pizza to me."

"Taste," noted Ripert, "is subjective, so if you like it, why not?"

That's the attitude of Bonnie Morales, the chef and owner of Kachka in Portland, Oregon. Long before the trend got legs on social media, Morales was serving a version of it.

She said she first offered a bite-size snack of caviar atop a bit of house-made french onion dip with a Cool Ranch Dorito base at the food festival Feast in 2018.

It was so popular that she eventually put it on the happy hour menu at her restaurant.