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Hey, hot stuff. Oh sorry, we weren’t talking to you. We were flirting with our food.
With the rise of food photography, we have taken our epicurean choices up a notch. Restaurants and chefs can rise to celebrity status, but they have to keep au courant with what is trending in an industry that is changing faster than ever.
We don’t yet have the ability to see the future through a crystal ball but we did our best to compile the trending restaurant topics. Here are the restaurant crazes that you can expect will be major points of discussions among foodies in 2015. If we are right, we are buying a lottery ticket on December 31st.
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1) Local Foods and Hyper-Local Foods – The Independent joked, “What’s the difference between local and hyper-local food? Probably about two Euros per carrot.” All kidding aside, hyperlocal is when food is grown on site. As people pay more attention to what goes in their mouths, restaurants are responding by growing food right on their surroundings. A startup by the name of OtherShip Foods aims to help more chefs go in this direction by creating containers that can grow food, soil-free. This may make local food accessible to even more establishments.
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2) Healthy Food (For Kids Too!) – It is not only carrot sticks on the side that make for a healthy menu. When coupled with soda and fried food, the side dish is almost negligible. Healthy restaurant menus have become vital to business as the demand for lower-calorie items increased at the same time that burger sales decreased, according to a study done by the Hudson Institute. Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at CSPI and a nutritionist says, “Having healthy options in general and for kids is very good for business.”
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3) Gluten free – Gluten Free is here to stay. The Gluten Free Agency estimates that their target audience is 44 million strong. Christine Couvelier of Culinary Concierge believes that gluten-free is “part of our way of eating and part of our way of life and the food world has accepted that. When developing products, manufacturers are getting better than ever at developing gluten-free products that taste great because I think that those two things have to go together.” Yahoo Food disagrees and thinks that in 2015 there will be a “wheat revolution.” Let’s see who wins.
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4) Local liquor – If we are getting local with our food, we can’t leave the alcohol behind. The National Restaurant Association predicts that micro-distilled artisan spirits, onsite barrel-aged drinks, and locally produced beer, wine, and spirits are going to be hot topics in 2015. Last year, craft beer kicked big beer’s behind. This works with a quote by Linda Johnson-Bell: “Like human beings, a wine’s taste is going to depend a great deal on its origins and its upbringing.”
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5) Street food getting off the street – With the meteoric rise of Food Trucks, it seems amazing that we still know how to sit in a restaurant. Food Trucks and Street Food don’t have the same rental costs as restaurants and can supply an amazing dish for a lower price. Yet, the inventive and handheld nature of popular street meals can work quite well in restaurants. Saltie restaurant in Brooklyn, New York, specializes in unusual sandwiches that frequently draw from world “street food” cuisine. The “Spanish Armada” with potato tortilla, pimento, and aioli adds ethnic flavours to an American style format. And you don’t even have to wait in the cold to get it.
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6) Make way for brinner over brunch – Move over Brangelina. The next portmanteau (and food trend) is brinner. Breakfast as dinner is popping up in many restaurants. Everyone deserves “the most important meal of the day” even if it doesn’t fit into a traditional schedule. BBC Good Food adds “there simply aren’t enough Saturdays and Sundays to try all those wonderful breakfast and brunch recipes, so they’re making their merry way to our weeknight dinner tables.” Bring back the bacon.
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7) Less organic, more sustainable – Let’s get specific with our terms to begin. Organic means crops grown without artificial pesticides, fertilizers, GMOs and animals raised without hormones or antibiotics. Sustainable means that the nutrients removed from the soil by growing plants are replenished without artificial inputs. But there are other definitions and some define sustainable as “ethically raised” or “eco conscious.” In any case, The National Restaurant Association and the American Culinary Federation predict environmental sustainability as one of the top food trends in 2015.
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8) Smaller and bigger packages – There are definitely two schools of thought. Some restaurants like to get on board with eating challenges, where the assumption is that you cannot eat it all. Houston restaurant, Nom Nom Noodles, will give a free t-shirt and a $50 gift card to anyone who completes the e-NOM-ous challenge. This is two pounds of noodles, two pounds of meat and a giant bowl of pho. Of course, not everyone believes that bigger is better. Nancy Laird, who was the 2014 chairwoman of the New Jersey Restaurant Association says that “Guests love to mix and match small portions, in a way to make their own tastings.” Bite sized desserts and miniature sweets is the number two predicted trend for desserts by the National Restaurant Association.
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9) The people behind the food – Knowing your farmer is becoming as important as knowing your food. Restaurants are beginning to get on board with food chain transparency. This can allow consumers to make informed choices even without cooking their own food, believes Jennifer Goggin, cofounder and CEO of FarmersWeb. People want to know the provenance of their food.
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10) Beverages as the stars of the show – A diet soda or a glass of wine to complement the meal may be a thing of the past. With drinks becoming as customizable as meals, a decaf caramel latte with house whipped cream may take over dessert. Communal boozing is also back, with punch bowls that can serve multitudes taking up more space on the table than entrees.
Of course, without yet completing our psychic degree, we could be wrong, but we are curious to see which ones you plan on implementing in your restaurant. Or do you know which trends will be hot in 2016?