America's Latest Obsession: Paying $18 for Toast That Looks Sad on Purpose

If you haven't yet been served a single piece of sourdough — artfully scorched, deliberately uneven, garnished with a lone microgreen that costs more per ounce than saffron — then congratulations, you still live somewhere with reasonable dining expectations. The rest of us are trapped in the "deconstructed rustic" movement, a culinary philosophy that argues food should look like it fell off a medieval cart and somehow landed on a $40 handmade ceramic plate. Restaurants across Brooklyn, Silver Lake, and the entire city of Portland are now charging brunch prices that would make a mortgage broker wince, all for the privilege of eating something your grandmother would have thrown away. The irony, of course, is that the "effortless" aesthetic requires a 14-person kitchen staff and a creative director.