• Gen Zers love customized meals, spicy food, and viral trends like menu hacks and mashups.
• They're changing restaurant menus with their desire for bold flavors, international ingredients, and personalization options.
• Trending dishes include Hawaiian musubi, birria ramen, and boba, as well as ingredients like yuzu, harissa, and za'atar.

Gen Zers have dining habits that set them apart from other generations.

They love to customize their food, they're suckers for a menu hack, and they crave spicy dishes, restaurant executives and experts say.

Gen Z, defined as the cohort of people born between 1997 and 2012, grew up with social media, ride-hailing apps, and Taylor Swift. They're changing fashion, celebrity culture, and the world of work. Here's how they're changing restaurant menus across the US.

They're adventurous eaters

Gen Zers generally crave big and bold flavors, executives told Business Insider.

They're accustomed to ingredients and flavor profiles "that generations in the past did not grow up with," Joe Labombardo, vice president of culinary at Chartwells Higher Education, which provides food services at around 320 colleges and universities, told Business Insider. "Profiles, ingredients, and recipes from all over the world are now part of their diets."

"They definitely have a bold palette," he said. "It's definitely not the blander palettes of yesteryear."

Younger diners want to try new things and are more likely to be attracted to limited-time offers at restaurants, Lizzy Freier, director of menu research and insights at restaurant analytics company Technomic, said during a panel at the National Restaurant Show in May.

Menu hacks fly on social media

Gen Zers are more inclined to try out menu hacks, creating new dishes using items already available on the menu. These can sometimes go viral on social media, where people share new combinations they've discovered.

Some chains are using these menu hacks to their advantage. Tom Boland, CMO of Bojangles, said during a panel at the National Restaurant Show that he'd noticed a spike in people ordering iced blueberry biscuits with a side of sausage on the weekends, particularly in areas with a high student population. It turned out that college kids were visiting after nights out and putting the sausage inside the biscuit for a sweet-savory snack.

Bojangles has now added the hack to its menu, served with the icing on top of the sausage rather than the biscuit to make it easier to eat. "This thing is flying off the shelves," Boland said.

They love to customize

Gen Zers want to feel like they're getting something exclusive. This includes ordering customized dishes. Younger customers, for example, have been known to embrace Starbucks' modifications to craft personalized drinks, while Chipotle, where diners can create their own burritos and bowls, was ranked as teens' third-favorite restaurant chain in a Piper Sandler survey.

"Made-to-order, built-to-your-liking foods are almost the staple now," Labombardo said. "That is here to stay and Gen Z and the generation after that both grew up with it."

At Caribou Coffee, younger customers — Gen Alpha, Gen Zers, and younger millennials — are most likely to modify their drinks, CMO Erin Newkirk told BI. "It's like what makes you famous on TikTok, if you can unlock the TikTok customization."

Snacks don't have to be unhealthy

Gen Zers are less likely to stick to the typical breakfast-lunch-dinner meal pattern.

"Gen Z is more apt to have more, smaller meals throughout the day versus the standard three square meals," Labombardo said.

"With Gen Z we don't really see a pattern per se" in dining times, El Pollo Loco CMO Andy Rebhun previously told BI. "It's usually: 'When it's most convenient for me.' They will eat whenever they can fit it into their schedule."

But when they do choose to snack, it's not necessarily on unhealthy food.

While they may opt for cronuts or boba, Gen Zs also graze on a lot of cottage cheese, hummus, or vegetables with spicy ranch, Labombardo said.

They crave spicy food

Gen Zers are big fans of spicy food, executives previously told BI.

Labombardo said that dishes with the North African paste harissa and the Thai jam nam prik pao were becoming increasingly popular.

"There's a lot more excitement around spicy flavors, but it's not just spice and pure heat," Labombardo said. "It's also recipes that compliment the heat." He said that they were also looking for ways to add a "spicy twist" to classic recipes, like spicy ranch, which he said is "extremely popular."

What they're ordering now: Chicken, mashups, and pickled food

Popular dishes among college students at the moment include Hawaiian musubi, a sushi-like dish made with spam and rice; shawarma; pickled foods; desserts with sweetened condensed milk, including in boba; and mochi doughnuts, Labombardo said. Flavors like za'atar and yuzu are also trending, he said.

Meanwhile, bacon pancakes, pickles wrapped in crispy fried cheese, Korean dishes including hot dogs, fried chicken, and chewy rice cakes with spicy sauce, known as tteokbokki, and Chinese tanghulu, a crunchy candied fruit, are flooding people's social-media feeds, Labombardo said.

Chicken also appears to be Gen Z's protein of choice. In a 2022 poll by Morning Consult, US Gen Z respondents listed chicken as their second-favorite food overall, behind only pizza. Chicken-sandwich brand Chick-fil-A keeps topping Piper Sandler's survey of teens' restaurants, while chicken-finger chain Raising Cane's has shot to number four in the ranking.

Mashups like Nashville hot chicken bao buns and birria ramen are also popular and can perform well on social media, Labombardo said.

They have high expectations

"This generation knows more about food than any generation in the past because of how they grew up," which includes shopping at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and seeing food content on social media, Labombardo told BI.

"Gen Z is demanding and they're not going to compromise their values for taste or for convenience or anything else," Caribou's Newkirk said.

• The Line in Neom is a "completely ludicrous" project, one expert says.
• The futuristic city is made up of two vertical mirrored skyscrapers positioned 656 feet apart. 
• Architects and planners have long questioned the project's practicality and sustainability.

The Line — a part of Neom contained between two vertically mirrored skyscrapers — is one of the most famous regions of the planned megacity.

Saudi Arabia's plans for the futuristic city have baffled architects and designers, including those who contributed to the original designs. The giant structures have faced criticism about their impact on wildlife, everyday appeal, and general usefulness.

Andreas Krieg, a Gulf specialist at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies at King's College London, called plans for The Line "completely ludicrous."

"The Line is a project that is not sustainable; it's a completely ludicrous megaproject that was never realizable because of the sheer cost of it," he told Business Insider.

He said that while some of Neom's regions have clear aims, the central city "has no real purpose" or "benefit."

The megacity is also set to include an octagonal floating city with a sustainable port, a luxury island resort, and a ski and adventure mountain range.

"From a commercial statecraft strategy point of view, Neom is a very viable project and has a lot going for it," Krieg said. "But you need to have a plan of how it can be realized to attract investors, and the Saudis are still falling short of that."

Plans for the megacity have reportedly been scaled back in recent months.

The Line was originally planned to accommodate 9 million people by 2030. However, a recent report from Bloomberg said this estimate had been lowered to fewer than 300,000 people by that date.

The costs associated with the project have also worried planners.

Executives working on Neom reportedly have dismissed the official Suadi figure of $500 billion as unrealistically low. The first 1.5 miles of The Line alone is expected to cost more than $100 billion, two people familiar with the work told The Wall Street Journal.

"The world has never seen anything like The Line," Krieg said. "There hasn't been a single project that would have consumed so many resources and had no real purpose."

Krieg is far from the first to question the viability of the glossy city.

Last year, British architect Peter Cook, who is involved in the project, called the city an "amazing absurdity," adding that the proposed height was "a bit stupid and unreasonable" in comments reported by the Architects Journal.

Representatives for Neom did not immediately respond to a request for comment, made outside normal working hours.

• Trump sat down with Logan Paul, and they talked about everything from Putin to aliens and Elon Musk.
• Given Trump's need to appeal to younger voters, Paul isn't the worst option for him.
• The "Impaulsive" interview also marks another instance of Trump's outreach to younger voters.

Logan Paul sitting down with former President Donald Trump was not on our bingo cards this week, but here we are.

Trump sat down with the controversial influencer for a close to an hourlong interview on X, which was released on Thursday. During the session, Paul and his co-host Mike Majlak talked to Trump about various topics, including Russian leader Putin, aliens, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

"Been looking forward to this all my life," Trump announced while walking on set to the "Impaulsive" podcast.

Dressing the interview set were Paul's Prime energy drink bottles in red, white, and blue packaging. And on the coffee table — signature red MAGA hats that Trump gifted the duo.

During the podcast, Trump ran through some of his greatest hits. Here are some of them:

• Trump reiterated an old argument that he was "tough" on Russian leader Vladimir Putin but added that they still had a "very good" relationship. Trump also said he thought Russia's war on Ukraine "would never have happened" if he was president.
• Trump also claimed that his felony conviction resulted in a bumper fundraising crop. He said it was "too bad" that he couldn't have raised "hundreds of millions" of dollars another way but celebrated the big bucks nonetheless. And Trump did draw in his fair share of donors, as his campaign site crashed when he asked for donations after his guilty verdict in his hush-money trial was announced in New York.
• Trump also talked about aliens and UFOs, a long-standing interest of his. The former president described an occasion when he met a pilot — a man he described as "Tom Cruise, but taller." The pilot, Trump says, recounted how he'd spotted a UFO that was "round in form and going, like, four times faster than my superjet fighter plane." And Trump's always been interested in aliens — in 2020, he said on Fox News that he planned to "take a good, strong look at whether UFOs exist." However, Trump told Paul that he still "can't say" he's a believer in alien life.
• Trump was also asked about Tesla chief Elon Musk. He launched into a spiel about how he couldn't figure out how Musk's rockets could land when they had "no wings." Then, he said Musk — who he's met in private, despite their previously frosty relationship — was a "spectacular guy."

For his part, Paul walked away with some Trump merchandise, including a shirt with Trump's mugshot printed on it and the slogan "NEVER SURRENDER."

"Is this your mugshot?" Paul asked Trump.

"Yeah, can you believe it?" Trump responded, smiling.

"You're a gangster," Paul said.

"This is what we're reduced to," Trump added before Paul and Majlak unfurled their matching shirts in front of the camera.

Trump's out to charm Gen Z, and that demographic might already be souring on Biden

Freshly convicted of 34 charges of falsifying business records, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee seems to have a new campaign strategy — appealing to younger Gen Z voters.

For one, Trump debuted his new TikTok account on June 1 with a video of himself at a UFC tournament.

At the point of writing, Trump's 6.2 million follower count has outstripped Biden's meager 376,000.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in an email to Business Insider's John L. Dorman on June 3: "We will leave no front undefended, and this represents the continued outreach to a younger audience consuming pro-Trump and anti-Biden content."

Trump's leaning into TikTok comes even after he tried to get the social media platform — the international version of the Bytedance-owned Douyin — banned. The former president signed an executive order in August 2020 that would have forced TikTok to sell to an American company.

Trump's second TikTok post, uploaded on Thursday, was a promotional clip of his freshly released interview with Paul.

Appealing to Gen Z could work for Trump, especially if one accounts for the "Trump amnesia" effect among Gen Zers. Now aged between 12 and 27 — some Gen Zers may have been too young during his presidency to be politically in tune with Trump-era policies.

And Gen Zers who vocally backed Biden during his 2020 run may also be souring on him in 2024.

For example, a coalition of social media content creators, which in 2020 was called "TikTok for Biden," has changed its name to "Gen Z for Change."

Aidan Kohn-Murphy, 20, the coalition's founder, told The Washington Post, said he thought Biden is now "out of step with young people on a number of key issues."

Representatives of Trump, Paul, and Biden didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

• Tourists are in for another summer of sweltering heat and extreme weather.
• Greek authorities closed the Acropolis this week amid scorching mid-day temperatures.
• Life-threatening temperatures are also set to scorch the US this week.  

Summer travel is already under attack — and it's technically still only spring.

Record-breaking temperatures and extreme weather events around the globe in recent days portend the promise of another blistering summer, even as the post-pandemic surge in travel continues to climb.

Greek authorities closed the Acropolis in Athens on Wednesday and Thursday during a sweltering mid-day heat wave. Temperatures soared above 104 degrees Fahrenheit across much of central and southern Greece this week, resulting in all archeological sites in the Greek capital going dormant from midday to 5 p.m. local time, according to The Associated Press.

The Acropolis, Greece's most popular tourist site, also closed last summer because of heat. But meteorologists said this week that this is the earliest heat wave recorded in Greek history, and the soaring temperatures have officials on high alert for potential wildfires.

Passengers stuck onboard a Qatar Airways flight in Athens on Monday resorted to stripping as they sat in 95-degree heat with no air conditioning.

In Cyprus — Europe's sunniest destination — a wave of heat-related wildfires has broken out near Paphos. The island draws scores of tourists each summer, eager to explore Cyprus' Roman ruins and beautiful beaches.

Further North, a holiday village in Turkey's Antalya Province was battered by flames as temperatures surpassed 102 degrees Fahrenheit, Euronews reported.

Meanwhile, torrential rains in parts of Spain wiped out crops in Murcia and grounded some flights on the popular tourist island of Mallorca, the outlet reported.

And the crisis is only likely to worsen as the summer drags on. Todd Crawford, vice president of meteorology at Atmospheric G2, told The New York Times last month that the firm expects 2024 temperatures across Europe to be on par with heat levels on the continent in 2022 — the hottest summer ever recorded on the continent.

Crawford said July and August, especially, will be blistering throughout the world's fastest-warming continent. But the perils of climate change haven't stopped people from flocking to places like Italy, Croatia, and Greece — all countries that were afflicted by scorching heat last summer.

Sweltering summers aren't a problem unique to Europe. The US is set to be smacked with life-threatening temperatures in the coming days, too.

Starting in the Southwest, potentially record-breaking heat is set to reach the East Coast by the end of the week. New York City is forecast to reach 90 degrees by Friday — just in time for the Big Apple's busiest tourist season.

• Jensen Huang has turned Nvidia into a company worth more than $3 trillion.
• Business Insider spoke to eight current and former employees about what it's like to work for him.
• The insiders revealed he often "grills" senior-level workers and has high expectations of them. 

Jensen Huang has achieved rockstar status in Silicon Valley.

The AI boom and soaring demand for Nvidia GPUs have propelled the company's stock and earned the Nvidia CEO a reputation as a visionary. Even Mark Zuckerberg calls him the "Taylor Swift of tech."

People who have worked for Huang on Nvidia's journey to become a $3 trillion-plus company previously described how he can be a "demanding" boss.

Eight current and former Nvidia employees spoke to Business Insider about Huang's leadership style and what it's like to be grilled by him. These people asked not to be named as they were not authorized to speak to the media.

They describe his approach to leadership as a blend of high expectations, a demand for intellectual honesty, and a "relentless pursuit of perfection." Huang's approach has helped drive Nvidia's success and created a culture with a growth mindset, according to the people who spoke to BI.

'Crystallizing complex things'

Two former executives described Huang as the smartest person they've ever met.

"He is a master at crystallizing complex things with simple clarity; he's able to boil stuff down and has very broad, deep knowledge and can go as deep as you want to on pretty much any subject," one said.

Another insider revealed that Huang often asks questions he already knows the answers to as a way of assessing comprehension of a topic. They said it's a strategic tactic and reminiscent of the character Lieutenant Columbo in the TV drama "Columbo," who would feign ignorance to catch people off guard or get them to slip up.

As a leader, Hunag is incredibly hands-on and meticulous in his attention to detail, several people said.

"Jensen is deeply involved in everything, and he works tirelessly — I think work is his hobby," a current employee said.

Huang often reviews slide decks before presentations and, at times, suggests last-minute changes to ensure they meet his high standards, two people said.

Email style

He also favors a flat organizational structure, reflected in Nvidia's office layout in the 2000s, where even executives had cubicles. That was a way to avoid creating separation between rank-and-file staff and the leadership, a former senior-level employee said.

The company's house style for writing emails is another area where Huang's influence is felt. Employees are expected to send Huang and their department a list of their top five priorities each week. Huang even responds to some of these emails, according to three people, which they felt showed his engagement with every aspect of operations.

Intellectual honesty

Huang sets high expectations for his employees as well as himself.

"He's definitely a demanding leader; he's a bit like a sports coach in that he expects a lot of you because he wants you to achieve your potential for your own good and for the good of the team," one person said, adding that they saw it as a positive quality.

Admitting mistakes is crucial at Nvidia, as it's seen as a way to learn and improve. Huang fosters what the insiders called "intellectual honesty." That means owning up when you screw up, and you could be in trouble if you don't admit your mistakes, they said.

A former executive recalled a telling moment in 1999, after Nvidia launched its first GPU, when Huang asked about the launch event. Despite the positive feedback, Huang's only question was "What could you have done better?"

Three former senior-level employees said Huang's leadership style is based on this focus on continuous improvement and learning from mistakes.

Another former executive described this approach as a "relentless pursuit of perfection." He said he believes Huang thinks teaching people and pointing out learning opportunities is part of his job.

The 'Jensen grilling'

Senior-level employees often experience what some have referred to as a "Jensen grilling"— intense questioning by Huang.

Several people BI spoke to said they had felt the heat in meetings.

"Everybody gets asked tough questions; you're expected to know your business," a former executive said. "If you started to look like you didn't know, he'd start grilling you and finding what you didn't know as a way to tell you 'go get on top of this'."

One employee likened Huang's grilling to an attorney's interrogation, noting that he wouldn't back down until he'd made his point. "Some say if you don't get yelled at by Jensen, it's because he doesn't care about you."

Generosity

Huang is also known inside the company for his generosity and philanthropy. A former executive said he has opened his home in Hawaii to some staff and even made them breakfast as he likes to cook.

During the 2010s, Huang decided to ditch company Christmas parties in favor of employees doing charitable work. "We started helping schools in disrepair in the Bay Area, hiring people or volunteering ourselves," one employee said.

In 2011, when Japan was hit by an earthquake and tsunami, Huang quickly donated money and encouraged staff to do the same.

Nvidia declined to comment.

Do you work a Nvidia? Got insights to share? Contact the reporter at jmann@businessinsider.com or on Signal at jyotimann.11

• Moscow adopted the yuan-to-ruble exchange rate as benchmark after the US expanded sanctions against it.
• The US sanctions forced the Moscow Exchange to end dollar and euro trading, causing market confusion.
• Russia's central bank reports yuan is now the main currency, accounting for 54% of trades.

Moscow is adopting the Chinese yuan-to-ruble exchange rate as its benchmark currency pair after the US expanded sanctions against Russia on Wednesday, the country's central bank said on Thursday.

The new restrictions target any global financial institution processing transactions with Russia. They also take aim at investments in Russian stock exchanges.

The new US sanctions prompted the Moscow Exchange to end dollar and euro trading on Thursday, causing confusion — since the exchange rate is now opaque. Some lenders in Russia stopped selling US dollars altogether, while the dollar-ruble rate spiked at some local banks.

Russia's central bank appeared to seek to calm the market in a statement on Thursday. It said the role of the dollar and the euro has declined "consistently" in the last two years, according to TASS, the state news agency.

The central bank added in its statement to Russia's RBC News that the yuan has become "the main currency" on the Moscow Exchange. The yuan accounted for 54% of currency trades in May. It will "set the trajectory for other currency pairs" and be the guideline for market participants, the central bank said.

Russia's use of 'friendly currencies' and the ruble for trade has risen

Russia has been seeking alternative trading partners and payment systems since the West hit the country with sweeping sanctions following its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia's central bank said on Thursday that the currencies from "friendly countries" and the ruble now account for as much as 80% of Russia's foreign trade payments.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin himself doubled down on his call to phase out the use of the US dollar and other "toxic" currencies earlier this month.

Moscow is also working with the BRICS bloc of major emerging countries on a payment platform to bypass the use of the US dollar — the world's dominant reserve currency for decades.

Meanwhile, countries around the world are also diversifying their assets and chipping away at the dominance of king dollar over fears that — like Russia — they could be shut out of the dollar-based global financial system should sanctions hit.

However, the greenback is so entrenched and pervasive that very few actually think it can be dethroned.