Are AI-generated recipes hard to digest?

Can AI help restaurant owners create enticing new menus, or is it a recipe for disaster?

“We asked [popular AI chatbot] ChatGPT to craft a recipe for the best pizza in Dubai,” says Spartak Arutyunyan, head of menu development for the city’s Dodo Pizza branch. “It generated a recipe that became a huge hit and is still on our menu.”

Dubai’s diverse population, with 90% being immigrants from various cultures, provided a unique challenge. Arutyunyan tasked ChatGPT with creating a pizza that reflected this cultural mix. The resulting recipe featured a topping of Arab shawarma chicken, Indian grilled paneer, Middle Eastern Za’atar herbs, and tahini sauce. Despite initial skepticism, the combination proved surprisingly popular. “As a chef, I wouldn’t have mixed these ingredients, but the flavors worked remarkably well,” he says.

However, not all AI-generated ideas made it to the menu. Examples like strawberry pasta and blueberry breakfast cereal didn’t make the cut. In the US, Venecia Willis, culinary director at Dallas’ Velvet Taco, also experimented with AI. She gave ChatGPT a set of parameters for taco creation, resulting in some unconventional combinations like red curry, coconut tofu, and pineapple. Yet, a taco featuring prawns and steak, inspired by AI, became a best-seller, with 22,000 sold in a week. “AI is a valuable tool for overcoming creative blocks and suggesting combinations you might not consider,” Willis notes. Still, she emphasizes the importance of a human touch to validate recipes.

Not everyone is a fan of AI in the culinary world. London-based cocktail creator Julian de Feral avoids it, finding its suggestions lacking in common sense. Linguistics professor Emily Bender from the University of Washington warns that AI’s capabilities are limited to patterns it has learned from existing content online. She suggests that while current AI might mimic recipes, future advancements could improve its ability to generate useful culinary ideas if given precise prompts.

In the UK, Waitrose is using AI to identify emerging food trends on social media. Trends like “smash burgers” and “crookies” were identified and quickly incorporated into their offerings. Meanwhile, Stefano Cantù, an Italian expat in Singapore, developed an AI-powered app named “ChefGPT” to suggest recipes based on available ingredients. The app quickly gained popularity, though Cantù faces ongoing costs for using OpenAI’s technology.

Back in Dubai, Arutyunyan sees AI as a fun tool rather than a primary menu driver. Dodo Pizza now allows customers to experiment with AI-generated pizza toppings through its app, and plans to extend this feature to its global branches.