Food: Most of '88 Recipe of the Year: Eat and Be Well

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HOTTEST RESTAURANT DESIGNER Suave, clubby dining rooms with mellow wood- paneled walls, glistening brass and a glowing wash of light are trademarks of the year's most popular restaurant architect, Adam Tihany. He is responsible for the quietly formal Huberts and Metro in Manhattan, and Bice, which will also open in Los Angeles and Chicago next year.

MOST DELICIOUS FILM SEQUEL When the Danish film Babette's Feast opened in the U.S. early this year, the irresistible meal prepared by the French-chef- masquerading-as-housemaid was offered in a posh restaurant in most of the cities where the film was shown. The meal, with its turtle soup (real or mock), its blini pancakes with caviar, the cailles en sarcophage -- quails with truffles and foie gras in a "sarcophagus" of puff pastry -- and the yeasty rum-drenched baba dessert, has become a classic staple at Petrossian in New York City, at $125 with the wines or $90 without.

TRENDIEST REGIONAL CUISINE Say so long to the chilies and blue cornmeal of the Southwest and to the Northwest's oysters, salmon and brambly herbs. The regional cuisine of the moment is dubbed "heartland," the bland and stodgy meat-gravy-and-potatoes fare of the Midwest. No doubt it will soon appear in stylized versions, complete with oysters, salmon, chilies and blue cornmeal, to become indiscernible from the food of other regions.

SWEETEST COMEBACK Profiteroles, the tiny ice-cream-filled cream puffs, considered the glamour dessert of the '50s and long passe, are back in favor at newly fashionable restaurants. The final classic touch is the dousing of bittersweet chocolate sauce, a sundae kind of taste that is so essentially American.

LEAST-NEEDED NEW PRODUCT Take mineral water from Mendocino, Calif., turn it over to chef John Ash, and be prepared for Truffle Water, a sourish-smelling carbonated drink that suggests spoiled milk, sulfur and stale beer. The question is not how he thought of it, but why?