Latkes, hash browns, röstis—however you define them, crispy potato cakes have become a platform for luxury, stacked high with uni, steak tartare, and local seafood. Call them by whatever name you want since, well, potato, pot-ah-to.

Latkes trace their roots to Hanukkah, commemorating the miracle of oil burning for eight days during the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem (167–160 B.C.).

Every winter, my culturally but not religiously Jewish husband reminds me, “Hanukkah is just a minor holiday,” as he shreds potatoes, squeezes them dry, and fries them into crisp, golden discs.

Latkes Beyond Hanukkah

While my husband Ari’s latkes are in high demand every December, they’ve transcended Hanukkah, appearing on fine dining menus year-round. Latkes—by any name—have become ubiquitous in high-end dining. If a restaurant leans casual, they’re called hash browns; if it leans refined, they’re potato pavé.

The template of the latke appetizer de jour seems to involve potatoes formed into a log, crisped on all sides, and piled with some form of very fancy and expensive seafood (or sometimes an equally fancy meat). And they almost always come in pairs.

At Philadelphia’s My Loup, chef Alex Kemp balances pastrami-spiced beef tartare on two latkes, decorating the stacks with pinches of sauerkraut and pairing the bites with a pickle and a cheeky paper ramekin of yellow mustard.

Farther up north in Philly, at Middle Child Clubhouse, okonomiyaki latkes are served by the piece, topped with unagi, kewpie mayo, pickled ginger, thinly sliced scallions, and optional trout roe. It’s a greatly embellished, Japanese-esque version of the crunchy and surprisingly light hash brown slab they serve at their original sandwich location, Middle Child.

In South Philadelphia, Scott Calhoun has just rolled out a menu that features swordfish crudo balanced on top of two rectangular sunchoke hash browns with bonito aioli and tangerine segments.

At a.kitchen + bar in D.C., smoked bluefish rillettes are piled high with thin slices of winter radishes and slivered banana peppers on what reads on the menu as potato rösti. Yes, the two triangular röstis per order are a slight departure from the trendy logs, but just barely. The dish is a mini masterclass in alternating textures and temperatures: fresh, crunchy vegetables give way to a soft bluefish salad, broken up by the crunch of a rösti’s outer fried layers and creamy potato core. 

I’d argue that even in Denver, Hey Kiddo’s potato pavé fits within the scope of this trend, as it, too, resembles a log. Hey Kiddo’s pavé is an expression of the restaurant’s zero waste goals. “We use bones from our fried chicken and duck bones to make a poultry stock, turn that into a velouté, and then add the ikura,” said owner Kelly Whitaker. The pavé drips with luminous orbs of trout roe and is tweezered with chives and tiny fronds of dill. This was the Instagram-famous brick that lured me into the restaurant back in September. I was rewarded with creamy potato layers, velvety velouté, and crunchy potato edges.

In the small town of Staunton, Virginia, the newly opened Maude and the Bear buzzes with excitement. It’s a finer dining expansion of Ian Boden’s lauded The Shack, and a vehicle by which he furthers his repertoire of blending global inspirations with his Jewish background and Appalachian ingredients. Of course, there is a latke on the menu, and it is a departure from anything that might resemble a Jewish latke, and it is decidedly not kosher. This is fully Appalachian fine dining. The latke consists of local potatoes, eggs, onions and pork schmaltz and is topped with wood-roasted milk-fed pork, roasted and fermented carrots which are glazed with gochujang and sorghum, blackened cabbage, and red wine hollandaise.

At Little Water in Philly, chef Randy Rucker stacks shreds of peekytoe crab and celeriac on top of a pair of sharp-edged hash brown logs. Upon the crab and celeriac salad, generous curls of Maine uni and a dusting of minced chives. “When I was developing the opening menu for Little Water, I wanted to serve peekytoe crab and uni, both from Maine, but I had multiple ideas for the vessel. Originally it was going to be crispy sushi rice, and then crispy grits, but when Jeff McConnell, the sous chef, came on board, he suggested the potato and I said ‘Yeah, man this is it.’” Their method involves shredding potatoes, seasoning with salt, bagging, poaching via sous vide, and pressing them. They’re then portioned and crisped in the fryer and seasoned with Henlopen sea salt before being donned with the peekytoe crab salad. 

The dishes on Rucker’s menus ebb and flow frequently. When asked if this appetizer will anchor the menu at Little Water, he responded, “It’ll fade away, but return in some form.”

If there’s anything to be learned from this trend, it’s that you can’t go wrong with a fried potato, and a latke by any other name will indeed smell as sweet.