Originally Posted by Pedestrian
To my taste, the best versions of American classics are the authentic, genuine ones. Southern BBQ made with "grade A meat" (not sure what that is) may well be less flavorfull than what some old black man turns out in a shack out on the highway from a hog he or a friend may have slaughtered. I was kind of taken aback when I first encountered San Francisco versions of southern classics I grew up with, made with "baby artisanal vegetables".
BBQ, of course, is a style of cooking, not a cuisine or particular dish. In the US we have arguments over pork BBQ Carolina style (and there are variations of that) vs beef BBQ Texas style (with which I am less familiar, having spent a number of years in the Carolinas but never lived in Texas). The thing all BBQ has in common is simply long, low-heat cooking, preferably over a smoky heat source. You can cook anything that way and somebody around the country somewhere probably does. In the northwest they certainly do it with fish.
Upscale burgers are indeed a "thing", made with Wagyu beef mainly. I am not a devotee so I can't expound on it. All ground meat being tender, I've never understood the point, especially since, once again, the fatty tenderness of Wagyu (and its apotheosis from Kobe) is buttery mouth feel, not necessarily flavor (especially when slathered with a strong-tasting cheese or condiments).
When it comes to things like pizza or mac and cheese, again the humblest dives can produce the best-tasting versions . . . or not. There are fans of the different styles like the pies from coal-fired ovens that reach 700+ degrees in NY and leave blackened bubbles on the crust or the deep dish (or square-shaped) pies in various parts of the midwest. But in each style, fancy higher-priced sellers aren't necessarily better than what the immigrant on the corner turns out (although the coal-fired oven joints tend to be old because cost and environmental regulation make it hard to open a new one of those). In San Francisco, when it comes to any Italian food, we have a different tradition having not had the southern Italian/Sicilian immigration the East Coast had and our Italian food tends more toward northern Italy and does try to emphasize higher-priced, "authentic" (or at least "artisanal", produced locally in our Mediterranean climate) ingredients. The result though, can be kind of unsatisfying to someone like me who grew up with the East Coast peasant versions.
Finally, let's talk Cajun and Creole. If there's a trend, it's to distinguish the two. Donald Link makes the point in his cookbook in relation to jambalaya: "The main difference is that in the Creole version, the rice is cooked in a tomatoey sauce that might include shrimp along with meat and sausage. The Cajun approach is more rustic. Searing and caramelizing the meat and onions individually prior to simmering everything together . . . ." He also puts a lot of emphasis on reducing and concentrating the broth (chicken) used. This is all pretty basic technique--nothing fancy, just a decision about what style in what tradition you really want to cook, and about authenticity.
If we do have an upmarketization going on, maybe it's with Mexican food. There's a recognition that the Tex-Mex street food one finds along the border is not all Mexico has to offer and in cities one finds more and more places exploring the upscale cuisines of Mexico City but also of various Mexican regions not so near the US like the Yucatan (and probably not especially familiar to the proprietor of your neighborhood taqueria). People like Rick Bayless and Diana Kennedy started this trend but many people are carrying it forward.
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