It’s an AI food generator. All of its food is just a little bit bland, because it’s the average of everything. They aren’t storing entire patterns for a tomato for example, so they have to be recreated each time, and the replicator prints a homogenized food-shaped item, with all the same components, but none of the random environmental conditions and uncultivated genetic traits that lead to a flavorful fruit. Then that compounds further when you get into processed foods, or whole prepared meals. There’s artistry there, that a computer can’t match.

Maybe, to mitigate this, there are some recipes where they do save an exact pattern of real food a chef made, so the replicator can make a few things that are particularly good. The Lower Deckers do make a big deal of the mac and cheese with the breaded top.

You see it in the way they treat the holodeck too. When it’s new, they have some fun with the computer generated scenarios, but all the best programs are the ones that they get from outside the ship, or that are made by a member of the crew. And they’re a sought after commodity. Data is still trying to figure out art. The Doctor seems to have managed it, but the Federation is slow to acknowledge him. Maybe the answer is replacing replicated meals with food prepared by holographic chefs, using replicated ingredients with higher fidelity patterns, that you have room for, because you’re no longer storing complex dishes