Wild Oats

For many years, granola was the lumpy woolen sweater of the food world.

You dipped your spoon into that hearty bowl of oats, nuts and dried fruit in the same way you might slip on a third layer of clothing on a cold morning. Granola has always signified back-to-the-earthiness, the whole-grains ethos that sprouted out of American counterculture in the 1960s and ’70s — so much so that its very name became a synonym for hippie living.

Granola could be many things, from a dorm-room staple to a parfait topping, but it was decidedly not chic.

If you’re still talking about it that way, though, take a closer look at the cereal aisle in your supermarket, or the menu at that innovative gastropub around the corner. Granola has traded in the bulky sweater for a little black dress. All over the country, small-batch entrepreneurs see granola as a booming growth sector, while chefs view it as an elegant and wide-open canvas for culinary experimentation.

Born in the better-eating movement of the late 19th century and revived a half-century ago as an earnest health food, granola is suddenly sowing its wild oats, in variations that are lavish, whimsical and sometimes unapologetically fattening.

Any tour of this new world should start by kicking off one’s sandals at Sunny Spot, a Caribbean-island-spirited restaurant in Southern California hatched in 2011 by Roy Choi, the man who introduced the world to the Korean taco. At brunch during the balmier months, Sunny Spot serves a granola dish that might have been dreamed up in a collaboration between Bob Marley and Andy Warhol.

For one thing, it’s not sepia-toned. It’s green and orange and yellow and blue. When Mr. Choi first went to his Sunny Spot team and suggested a fresh take on granola, he told them he wanted to see color. “It’s always just so brown,” he said. “Why can’t we make it really, really festive?”