McCaviar is how we’re doing Valentine’s Day now

McDonald’s McNuggets and Caviar campaign has, of course, gone viral, which is the most you can expect from a Valentine’s PR stunt. But is it just a stunt? Or is it also a snapshot of modern love?

Fried chicken with caviar didn’t start at McDonald’s. It started around 2010 in the Lower East Side of New York City at chef Wylie Dufresne’s seminal restaurant wd~50. He took leftover chicken that had been prepared sous vide, then breaded, fried, chilled, sliced and served it with buttermilk gel and a spoonful of American caviar. According to chef Andrew Zimmern, a four-time James Beard Award winner and author of “The Blue Foods Cookbook,” in 2014 the pairing was spotted again at chef David Chang’s Momofuku and was later popularized by chef SK Kim at COQODAQ, both also groundbreaking New York City restaurants.

It took another eight years to travel from white-tablecloth restaurants to the drive-thru thanks to #CaviarTok, a small corner of the TikTok universe that began gaining traction in late 2022. The trend is credited to Danielle Zaslavskaya, an online food creator known for snack videos, who posted a short TikTok of herself unceremoniously spooning caviar straight from the tin onto buttered rye “fitness bread.”

In that one quiet moment of indulgence, she reframed caviar as an accessible, snackable treat. Soon, other TikTok creators started posting videos of caviar spooned onto everyday foods, crackers, potato chips and even fast food. Fast-forward four years, and McCaviar has officially entered the chat.

Zimmern, for one, is unimpressed.

“A caviar dollop on foods is so 2022,” he said. “It somehow stretched into 2025, and the fact that it’s dripped down into the fast food world is not surprising.”

Zimmern continued, “These nuggets are arguably the most ultra-processed food in America. A McNugget topped with a multivitamin would be a better way to say ‘I love you.’”

Press photos show a small tray of golden McNuggets on a silver platter. Their texture is homogeneous. Their flavor is one note: salty. The caviar, on the other hand, appears high-quality. The eggs aren’t glopped together in a hazy, mushy mound. They are glossy, inky black, uniform in size and shape.

Credit: Olivia Wakim

Credit: Olivia Wakim

“I love high-low cooking,” Matt Marcus, chef at Truth Be Told in Roswell, told the AJC. He referred to the act of pairing a run-of-the-mill, pedestrian ingredient with something on the luxurious end of the culinary spectrum, exactly what McCaviar is.

“It took me a while to realize most people don’t get access to the weird, fun stuff cooks play with in kitchens” he continued.

Credit: Handout

Credit: Handout

Marcus remembered cooking foie gras for years without loving it, until a fellow cook had him try the fatty goose liver with Ritz crackers.

“That was the moment,” he said with a laugh. The ingredient is now on his menu in the form of a foie gras panna cotta, a savory appetizer that blends barely gelatinized cream with rich, fatty duck or goose liver.

“If you’re a flavor chaser, nothing’s really off-limits,” Marcus says. “That kind of creativity should be celebrated.”

Still, even he draws a line.

“Honestly? McNuggets are too dry,” he said. “The caviar gets lost. You want a hash brown. Or a Filet-O-Fish. Something with fat.”

The McNugget and Caviar campaign may not really be about maximizing flavor, according to industry experts. Instead, It’s about maximizing flex. Getting your hands on the unique combo meal won’t be easy. Have you seen the countdown?

Jay Bandy, president of Atlanta-based Goliath Consulting Group, a firm specializing in restaurant development, said he sees McCaviar as a smart play in a difficult moment for restaurants.

“Traffic’s been awful for three years,” he said. “But consumers are chasing small luxuries right now so they can say, ‘I treated myself.’”

The franchise, he said, is offering a small luxury in a way only McDonald’s can.

“Free. Viral. Limited.” Bandy said McCaviar is “a shot in the arm” for the brand. “They’ll own the news cycle for a week.”

Americans are more food-obsessed than ever. You can’t scroll through your feed without seeing a dozen posts featuring a trending dish like burgers with ramen buns, pickle-brined everything and bulgogi-loaded fries. They’re held proudly, in extreme close-up shots, as status symbols. But do they qualify as a romantic gesture?

Until now, the gold standard of Valentine’s Day romance has been white tablecloths, prix-fixe menus, champagne and roses. Has romance become the victim of shrinkflation? How did we get to the processed nugget with a caviar bump?

Murray Dabby, co-founder of The Couples College in Atlanta, said modern relationships are under real financial strain.

“There’s pressure to spend a lot of money on Valentine’s Day,” he said. “But relationships today are not about performative pretension.”

Aaron Turpeau, known as Atlanta’s “Black Love Doctor,” agreed. Luxury, he said, is not what creates intimacy.

“It’s about intention. Valentine’s Day is an opportunity to say, ‘I love you. I care about you. I think about you.’ You don’t have to spend money to do that. Generous expressions of care are what matter.”

Maybe free McCaviar for Valentine’s Day isn’t the death of romance. Maybe it’s just romance changing its shape to something that is also high-low. It is, after all, still an expression of love through food.