Fine dining is taking cues from the forest and shore in a trend now known as “find dining,” with chefs crafting menus around what the environment provides. This modern take on foraging fuels seasonal offerings and inspires new culinary ideas. Meals feature mushrooms, seaweed and wild herbs, giving diners a direct connection to the landscapes behind their meals.
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Beyond the trend, using wild plants and coastal greens also helps support sustainable food practices. Restaurants and home cooks turn to these ingredients to create dishes that ease pressure on food systems and protect the planet.
The rise of find dining
The United States has nearly 2 million farms, with more than half the nation’s land devoted to agriculture. Many industries, from food service to manufacturing, depend on farms, but agriculture remains highly sensitive to shifts in climate and weather.
This reality puts pressure on food systems and pushes communities to reevaluate how ingredients reach the table. By 2025, chefs and home cooks respond through the foraging movement, bringing wild plants, fungi and coastal greens into restaurants, family kitchens and workshops.
Advocates also highlight that find dining builds on the spirit of foraging. “Every place has its different, unique foods, so foraging is literally giving you a taste of the place,” explains Alan Muskat, founder of No Taste Like Home, in Yahoo. He adds, “You don’t know what you’re going to find, and that makes it exciting.”
Mushrooms take center stage
Mushrooms remain at the heart of find dining and extend well beyond the kitchen. Bruch Reed, chief operating officer of the North American Mycological Association, says in the BBC, “Mushrooms are an abundant resource, as long as forests are an abundant resource.”
Culinary culture has embraced this abundance with confidence. In 2024, Chef Saul’s Foraged Wild Mushroom Dinner at Della Terra led guests through five dishes that showcased mushrooms’ versatility. Diners were invited to pair the meal with wines from Italy, Austria and New York.
Seaweed makes waves
Foraging seaweed for your own plate tells a different story. Seaweed is considered a superfood, packed with nutrients like potassium, iron and magnesium. Commercial cultivation is also growing quickly as countries seek sustainable crops to meet growing demand for food and materials.
Scott, a seaweed guide featured by the BBC, agrees that foraging fosters appreciation for the natural world. “If you teach people about edible things around them, they are much more likely to look after nature,” he says. The World Bank echoes this view, stating, “At a time when global resources are increasingly overstretched, it is particularly important that the world makes the most of those resources, such as seaweed, that can both be swiftly regenerated and potentially help to regenerate the ecosystems that support them.”
Chefs and restaurants now play a crucial role in shaping how seaweed enters mainstream diets. “As chefs, when you source and present seaweed on your menus, you are doing your dining community an enormous service,” says Dr. Prannie Rhatigan in The Sustainable Restaurant Association. She explains that whether farmed or wild, seaweed benefits health and provides a culinary education, since diners often try in restaurants what they might never cook at home.
Wild herbs and edible flowers
The practice of gathering wild foods and adding them to daily diets has grown steadily, improving nutrition and broadening food diversity. These plants often serve as fallback options when harvests fail, and research on food security and biodiversity shows they help ecosystems remain resilient under climate stress.
This ancient practice continues to sustain at least 1 billion people who include wild edible plants in their diets. Their hardiness and adaptability not only provide nourishment but also reinforce resilience where modern agriculture falls short.
Such foods are more than survival rations; they connect heritage and innovation. By featuring edible weeds, herbs and flowers in find dining, chefs highlight their strength and adaptability in new ways. In the process, they transform once-overlooked greens into symbols of ecological stability and culinary creativity.
A feast beyond the forest
Find dining today connects farm, forest and coast to the table. Mushrooms take center stage, seaweed proves its staying power and wild weeds emerge as surprising heroes that bring nature back into the diet in creative ways. The movement is both playful and practical, proving that the untamed side of food belongs in modern kitchens as much as in the wild.
Mandy Applegate is the creator behind Splash of Taste and seven other high-profile food and travel blogs. She’s also the co-founder of Food Drink Life Inc., a unique and highly rewarding collaborative blogger project. Her articles appear frequently on major online news sites, and she always has her eyes open to spot the next big trend.