Top  INGREDIENT  Trend

Attention tube steak: Your days are numbered. Hot dogs and sausages are slipping out of street-cart-status and claiming an artisanal aura, showing up on all the best menus, with all the best ingredients and accompaniments.

Chef-luminary Daniel Boulud’s newest venture, DBGB Kitchen and Bar, a French brasserie meets American tavern, showcases 14 different varieties of house-made sausages, including the spicy lamb-and-mint Tunisienne and the pan-roasted Italian Toscane.

The sausage list at Rosamunde Sausage Grill, in San Francisco, also numbers 14 versions, from wild boar with apple and spice to duck with figs, and there’s even an organic, vegan option.

In Philadelphia, hot-dog fanatics can get their fixes at the Philly Hotdog Café, where 25 different wiener presentations are made with Vienna beef franks, ranging from a plain or foot-long to a corn dog; a Texas Tommy with bacon and cheddar; a Chicago Dog, loaded with tomato slices, sport peppers, dill spear, diced onions, relish, mustard and celery salt; and the signature Philly Dog CheeseSteak with fried onions.

Other operators are playing with size and style, rolling out mini dogs and pigs-in-blanket treatments and using upscale meats like Kobe, bison or lobster.

If you look at the food trends now, everything old is new again, but with a twist of something different, says Kim Menzies of KM Food Consulting, a San Diego-based consultant to chain restaurants. Hot dogs and sausages, even the most high-quality, are still an affordable indulgence, especially for a family.

At $9 to $15 on the dinner menu, DBGB’s sausages may be intended as appetizers and shareables before the main course, but they still represent the average citizen’s best chance to afford a meal by Daniel Boulud. And at Chicago’s Hot Doug’s, a “sausage superstore and encased-meat emporium” often credited with helping to start the specialty hot-dog trend, enthusiasts can sample from more than a dozen different dogs, from the standard Chicago-style to the Salma Hayek mighty hot andouille, all priced under $4. No wonder hot dogs and sausages are poised to become the next hamburger.

Then, too, the trend fits handily with chefs' new love of all things salumi- and charcuterie-related: With house-made pancetta a bit ho-hum, it's high time for something new in the meat mix. And with kitchens embracing the whole nose-to-tail ethos as both a creative challenge and a cost-saving measure, the lowly sausage was bound to come back into fashion.