TOP145 FOOD TRENDS
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A Year’s Worth of Inspiration! What does 2011 have in store? The press is weighing in! From moonshine to sausages, pies to popsicles, we’ve collected a few of the most interesting Food Trend lists, and they’re sure to get your creative juices flowing! Pick up some great new ideas and industry insight, and may the New Year add new life to your menu!
Another important trend to stay on top of is Social Media and building your restaurant’s presence online. Ask your Marketing Associate for our flyers on Building Your Restaurant’s Digital Identity,
Chefs Predict the Biggest Trends for 2011 www.nationsrestaurantnews.com Dec. 1, 2010 by Bret Thorn
Locally sourced ingredients and sustainability topped the list of top trends in restaurants for next year, according to an annual survey of chefs by the National Restaurant Association. The NRA asked 1,527 chefs, all members of the American Culinary Federation, what they expected to be top of mind in 2011. Tied at No. 1, with 86 percent of chefs identifying each of them as important trends, were locally sourced meats and seafood and locally grown produce. Sustainability came in as the third most important trend, the NRA reported. “The top trends identified by these culinary professionals for 2011 are reflecting larger societal trends, underscoring that American diners are becoming more and more interested in what’s on their plate," said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of the NRA's research and knowledge group. "Sustainability and nutrition are becoming key themes in our nation’s nearly one million restaurants.” The chefs also were surveyed about operational trends, recession strategies, promoting nutrition and using social media. The most common recommendations for strategies during a difficult economy were simplifying menus to save on labor and food costs, offering value specials and increasing marketing efforts. Thirty percent of chefs said mobile food trucks and pop-up restaurants would be the hottest operational trend in 2011. Eighteen percent said the biggest trend would be restaurants with gardens, and 17 percent said it would all be about social media marketing. More than half of the chefs surveyed — 55 percent — said they were currently using social media for professional purposes and an additional 16 percent said they were planning on using it. As for promoting nutrition, 21 percent of respondents recommended creating diet-conscious menu items, such as dishes that are lower in sodium, calories or fat. Nineteen percent suggested adding more fresh produce options to menus, and 17 percent advocated getting involved in school nutrition and children’s education efforts. Full survey results can be found at www.nationsrestaurantnews.com
The Top 20 Trends for 2011 Locally sourced meats and seafood Locally grown produce Sustainability Nutritionally balanced children’s dishes “Hyper local,” such as restaurants with their own gardens and chefs who do their own butchering Children’s nutrition Sustainable seafood Gluten-free food and being food allergy conscious Simplicity/back to basics Farm/estate-branded ingredients Micro-distilled/artisan liquor Locally produced wine and beer Smaller portions for smaller prices Organic produce Nutrition/health “Culinary” cocktails -- those that have savory or fresh ingredients Newly fabricated cuts of meat such as the pork flat iron and the beef petit tender Fruit and vegetables as children’s side items Ethnic-inspired breakfast items, such as Asianflavored syrups, chorizo scrambled eggs and coconut milk pancakes Artisan cheeses
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Top Trends for 2011 For seven years now, our “Top Trends” forecast has set the standard for industry insight into what operators can expect for the upcoming year. We have completed our latest research and are happy to announce our “Top Trends for 2011.” We are very proud to say that a majority of our predictions for the past year were right on the money. We believe the same will hold for this year.
The Driving Theme Will Be “Perceived Value to the Guest” This buzzword seems to have been beaten into the ground in recent years. People hear the phrase “value” and shut it out. However, all we need to do is look at the success of several large pizza chains – Domino’s and Pizza Hut – to see how providing value to your guest increases sales and improves the bottom line. This is not limited to pizza chains; Panera Bread is doing a great job in bringing perceived value to the customer. The term customer value is the difference between the “perceived benefits” and the “sacrifice (payment).” In essence, “what did the customer get and was it worth it.” This does not necessarily signify low pricing, but rather making sure the guests are satisfied and their expectations have not just been met, but exceeded. The guest needs to leave your restaurant thinking about their next visit. This creation of VALUE takes the form of more creative dishes, more reasonable or multiple portion sizes, and more attention to the “hospitality” aspects of service. To be successful, the operator needs to sweat the details that have been overlooked in the past: refine recipes to provide more flavors; upgrade server training; and pay attention to your facility so it is immaculate. Most importantly, PROVIDE A QUALITY PRODUCT!
menu and design it to push the customers towards the higher gross profit items. Menus will need to be updated and revised more frequently than in years past to take advantage of guest expectations as well as specials offered by food suppliers. Pay special attention to staffing to ensure labor is available only when it is needed. Learn to send people home quicker and not let staff linger to the top of the hour.
There Needs To Be a Continued Effort in Taking Care of the Kids If you offer an off-the-shelf- bag of macaroni and cheese and hot dogs on your kids menu, this needs to change. Since 2006 we have recommended that the quality of food items offered on the children’s menus needs to improve. This will continue to be extremely important as family dining has been one of the first segments of the industry to bounce back. Per QSRweb, visits of parties with kids increased this last summer for the first time in three years. American Demographic Magazine states that married couples with children spend an average of 44% more at restaurants than those without children. Happy kids mean happy parents. Provide a fun and unique selection of foods for the kids.
The use of Social Marketing and its importance will continue to grow Don’t have a Facebook page or a Twitter account yet? Better get one now! When was the last time you updated your web page? Is the content current or do you still have that special event from 2008 listed there?
When Will the Recession End for Me? The more important question should be, “Are you ready for the recovery?” The restaurant industry appears to be bouncing off its steepest drop in traffic in the last 28 years. Guest counts flattened in the third quarter of 2010 compared to a prior year 3% drop. Same store sales have begun to increase and customers appear to be returning. We expect this trend to continue with an overall increase in customer traffic in the 3 – 5% range during 2011. Whether or not you choose to participate in this recovery is up to you. Guests will become more finicky in their choice of dining entertainment (see VALUE above – the restaurant business IS Entertainment). To capture a portion of this growth you will need to provide “Perceived Value” and market to your customer base with a personalized approach. Place special attention on marketing to the over 50 crowd. Consideration should be given to those projects to expand or add capacity that you may have been putting on the back burner for the last several years.
Profit Will Be Possible, But not Easy Restaurants will be squeezed from both sides. Customers will want to see lower to flat prices while vendors will begin to try to push through price increases (especially for proteins). To counter these divergent issues and their effect on the bottom line, you will need to push the guest to purchase items on the menu that you would like them to buy. This will require operators to take a hard look at their
Forty nine percent (49%) of your guest under the age of 44 have used Twitter or something like it in the past year. The number of unique visitors to Twitter has increased 1,382% year over year. During the same period, Facebook usage increased 228%. Social Media Today estimates that 41% of individuals under the age of 39 will make their restaurant eating decision based on a Tweet they received that day. Reduce the amount of resources you are spending on conventional print and TV advertising and get closer to your guests by using these highly effective social marketing tools. This needs to be complimented by a high quality web site complete with menus, daily specials, and a map showing how to get to your establishment.
Old Standbys May Provide a Profitable New Business Opportunity Last year we discussed the benefits of resurrecting food carts and food trucks. Their use exploded! It is not too late. Food trucks provide a low cost option to expand your brand and go to where the customers are. These venues provide more guest interaction while providing a valuable service. They can become part of your marketing program by taking them to special events where you can also promote your main location.
nationalrestaurantconsultants.com
Buy Locally – It’s More Important Than Sustainability and Organic In 2008, we accurately predicted that for independent operators and small chains, local sourcing of meats, produce, and bakery goods would provide a huge competitive advantage. This will continue into 2011 as customers perceive this as “VALUE”. Just using locally produced items is not the end; you also need to make sure you promote it. You will not be disappointed.
Ethnic Fusion is the New Gourmet Burger Last year saw fine dining establishments and internationallyrenowned chefs put a burger on their menu. This year it will be the addition of ethnic ingredients into the menu that will drive traffic. We expect to see the integration of Asian and Latin foods being combined with more European favorites. Another trend will be to grow your own spices and/or produce next to the restaurant.
The Big Thaw Financing for new restaurants is still gridlocked. However, there are some signs that access to credit is thawing. Large lenders to the restaurant industry like GE Capital, Wells Fargo & Co, and Bank of America say they’re either lending more or have more money to lend than they did than during the last several years. The Small Business Administration also has recently begun to guarantee 90% of principal loan amounts, up from 75%. This will allow many small institutions to ease credit. There will still be a strong aversion to risk and access to capital will only be gained by well thought out and planned concepts backed up with a strong business plan.
Get Ready for Healthcare Unless something changes with the new Congress, major changes in healthcare rules and regulations are coming. Some will start next year with a majority of changes happening in 2014. How you calculate your full time headcount will become of major importance. This may be the one aspect of your business that will have the biggest impact on your cost structure in the years to come.
www.foodchannel.com Nov. 30, 2010 Top 10 Food Trends for 2011 Our values have changed in recent years. We now value different things than we did before the economy slumped, jobs became a precious commodity, and technology turned out to complicate our lives as much as it gave us shortcuts. Sure, for years we talked about simplicity, sometimes under names like "local" or "social consciousness," or "green." But it was like true simplicity was second string— something that we should probably want, but didn’t, not really. Well, that whole paradigm is quickening thanks to the economy. As we head into 2011, we see people beginning to cherish simplicity. Yes, we have tasted simplicity and have been won over. Here's the rub: just as a good writer understands that writing fewer words is harder than a lot of words, removing things from our lives is harder than adding to them. And, yet, we see that the 2011 Food Trends are about embracing what may be a little more difficult, because it has proven its value. Farming. Diet and exercise. Venturing out into new tastes and flavors. Finding our food identity in the kitchen, in the halls of government, and in technology. We value things that are, if not exactly close to us, are at least close to the little guy. The new food simplicity is about putting value on the independent grower, on the person who is striving to make a difference—one farm, one person, one business at a time. In 2011, the consumer is all about buying from a business that is dedicated to creating a quality product, dedicated to doing the right thing, regardless of the size of the business or the number of products they produce.
Our Editor's Favorite Trends In that spirit, we have taken a look into the future and seen that it is local, it is individual, and it is valuable. Take a look at what we see.
1. The Canning Comeback Food preservation has a rejuvenation. They used to call it “putting up,” as in putting up tomatoes or corn for the winter ahead. Maybe your grandmother still refers to it that way. What it means of course is canning, pickling, and preserving—and more and more folks will be getting into it for a number of reasons. One major one is the concern for food safety. The recent scares over contaminated tomatoes, peanut butter, and eggs have driven people to take more control over what they put on their table.
2. Men in Aprons A gender role reversal is bubbling up in the kitchen. The slumping economy has hit men harder than women, with job losses in traditionally male fields such as finance and construction. Women, on the other hand, are employed in fields that are expected to flourish in the years ahead. As Mintel points out, it’s left many couples with a new balance of power: female breadwinner, male bread buyer (and baker). The rise of the Sheconomy, TIME magazine calls it, and it’s expected to last for a while. For every two guys who graduate from college, three
women do. The recession is only part of it. Men have been influenced by macho chefs on TV’s cooking shows, where it’s all about culinary competition, achievement and triumph. Plus, what guy doesn’t love a cool new gadget or tool? And there are lots of those in the kitchen these days.
3. Local Somewhere Support a local grower . . . anywhere. Politicians say that all politics is local. It's becoming more and more evident that the same is true for food. This trend understands that mindset—that it’s all about eating local, but that local goes beyond a geographical definition. The new local is really about the independent spirit that causes entrepreneurial people to develop new food products, open new restaurants, and bring new food ideas to life. In other words, local has moved, and it didn't leave a forwarding address.
4. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Sometimes we don't want to know the nutrition numbers. Politicians on the local, state and federal government level are stepping up efforts to legislate healthier eating. These well-meaning efforts have led to calorie counts on restaurant menus, bans on trans fats, and a war on sodium. They’ve also brought about a backlash. Let’s face it. Some things we just don’t want to know. We’re okay having pamphlets on nutrition being available, but do we really have to have the calories and fat listed in bold type on the menu right next to our favorite megaburger? For many, it’s just another example of the growing Nanny State, and the answer is simply “No, thanks.”
5. Appetite for Food Apps Discount eats make the new smart phone apps delicious. Just as the adorable antics of cats have become the unexpected stars of the Internet, food has become the dominant attraction of smart phones. It seems like there’s a new mobile food app popping up every time you start to feel hungry. You can shake your phone on Urbanspoon to create a slot machine effect that spins neighborhood, cuisine type, and price to help you find a restaurant; VegOut helps you find one with lots of vegetarian choices; and Open Table not only locates restaurant choices using GPS technology, but also lets you know if there are tables currently available. But it’s the instant 24/7 availability of mobile grocery coupons and restaurant deals on smart phones that consumers will really grab onto in the coming year.
6. Small is the New Big Business Getting closer to the customer. This was the year Domino’s Pizza popularized transparent marketing, complete with a campaign speaking directly to their customer base, admitting how bad their pizza tasted. Their new pizza was introduced using photography that wasn’t food styled. They laid down the honesty gauntlet after listening to their customers. As anyone who works for a big corporation knows, the bigger your brand, the larger a target you may become. In today’s world, a corporate mindset might be bad for business.
7. Fresh Every Day
9. Discomfort Foods
Rediscovering the butcher, baker and cheese maker. We see American food shoppers going about their marketing a bit more like our European counterparts in the coming year. People will be returning to the neighborhood butcher shop to pick up fresh meats and grabbing their specialty breads and pastries at the corner bakery or bakery-café, and shopping on nearly an everyday basis for the evening meal. Yes, the large supermarkets and everything-under-oneroof big box stores will still get the lion’s share of our grocery dollars, but the increased popularity of farmers markets has whetted our appetite for locally-sourced foods and one-on-one personal attention.
Eating your way out of your comfort zone. In some ways, we've grown accustomed to a topsy-turvy world and are embracing food that accentuates that. However, at other times, we find the situation just a little bit unnerving. This trend is about consciously trying new things that stretch our food vocabulary and experience.
8. Chefs in Schools Living up to their pledge, chefs join the cafeteria crews. This will be the year we finally get really serious about feeding our children healthier, better quality foods. We’re no longer just talking about childhood obesity, we’re doing something about it. Jamie Oliver came with TV cameras to the “unhealthiest city in America” and showed what a difference one person can make. In 2011 thousands of chefs will be working with school districts to get better, fresher foods on the kids’ trays.
10. Eating for Sex and Other Things Looking for foods that keep us young, strong and active. It’s no secret that Americans are reaching retirement age in record numbers, now that the Baby Boomers are starting to hit their mid-sixties. And, as they have since they first began to walk, boomers will influence nearly everything in 2011, including foods. As Mintel reports, many boomers will continue to work—and they’ll demand foods that provide the energy and vitality to get them through the day. And, as sales for Viagra prove, boomers want to stay in shape for nighttime activities, too. Look for more food products to make bedroom performance claims in the years ahead. Nutmeg, for one, has gained a lot of press recently for its reputation as a female aphrodisiac. For more details on these trends, visit foodchannel.com
- 10 Foods to Watch in 2011 1. Small Pies
6. Grits
Some are already calling it the “next cupcake.” We say, yes, pies will be hot in the coming year, but look for smaller pies to make it big—in both sweet and savory varieties.
Could this old southern favorite become the “new grain”? It will move beyond breakfast menus and above the Mason-Dixon Line.
2. Sausage Look for a leaner, better quality sausage, sourced locally at farmers markets, to take on the role as the “new bacon.” Home butchery and the charcuterie trend has led to renewed interest in cured meats.
3. Nutmeg Researchers have discovered that nutmeg’s reputation as an aphrodisiac—especially for women—has some merit. 4. Moonshine Tennessee’s first legal moonshine distillery opened this summer, and the clear corn whiskey hootch can now be found in many liquor stores and even purchased online. It still packs a wallop. 5. Gourmet Ice Pops Ice pops in exotic flavors like bacon, mango chile, and peanut butter are the latest to get the artisanal treatment. They’re known as paletas in Mexico. Watch for them to go mainstream north of the border in 2011.
7. Sweet Potato These super-nutritious tubers will be orange-hot in 2011. They’ll be especially molten as the alternative, better-for-you french fry. 8. Fin Fish We are still discovering so much about the benefits of fish. After all, it wasn't that long ago that we found out about Omega 3's, and we know that obtaining these nutrients directly from food is the best way to get them into our system. We're banking on more acceptance of farmed fish as it becomes more important to have a good supply of this lean protein. 9. Cupuaçu Fruit This is quite possibly the next superfruit, following in the footsteps of the acai fruit. Both are from the Brazilian rainforest. Cupuaçu has a number of antioxidants and minerals, and is considered a natural source of energy. We tasted it in a Brazilian candy that had us craving more. Speaking of candy, you might also watch for Brigadeiro. This sweet Brazilian candy is made by mixing sweetened condensed milk, butter and cocoa powder. It's usually rolled into a ball and coated in granulated sugar, but it can also take on other flavors. It's the national truffle of Brazil. 10. Beans A great source of protein and a versatile ingredient in appetizers like white bean & rosemary bruschetta. And still awesome in chili.
www.epicurious.com Dec. 12, 2010 Food Trend Predictions for 2011 by Tanya Steel 'Tis true that making predictions can be a fool's errand, but still we press on with our ears to the ground and our lips to the plate and glass (yes, it's a funny-looking position), boldly predicting the food, drink, restaurant, and cooking trends for 2011. Judging from last year's trends post, we're more Farmer's Almanac than Nostradamus, which is to say, most of our prophecies have indeed come to pass. So, what's next in the world of good eating? Here are the top ten trends whose time has almost come.
Food Halls America may be a century or two behind on this trend, but we are finally embracing the food hall, in all of its gluttonous, groaningshelves glory. Following in the footsteps of giants worldwide (Paris' La Grande Épicerie and the food halls at Harrods of London and Takashimaya in Tokyo), New York has gotten into the act in a big way. Mario Batali and the Bastianich family recently opened Eataly, a boisterous celebration of Italian cuisine, in Manhattan, plus a smaller version called Tarry Market in suburban Port Chester; Todd English made his mark with the Plaza Hotel's Food Hall; Jeffrey Chodorow introduced the first installment of his FoodParc; and the former Limelight nightclub was converted into the Limelight Marketplace. Of course, the trend isn't limited to New York: Thierry Perez just debuted L'Épicerie Market in Los Angeles; Cathal Armstrong of Restaurant Eve is opening Society Fair in Alexandria, Virginia, next spring; and there are rumors that San Francisco's Todd Humphries is planning a small food hall in the Napa Valley. We hope this trend becomes as ubiquitous here as it is in Europe.
Korean Cuisine Could kimbap be the next sushi? Evidence is mounting that smoky, piquant Korean is America's next big cuisine. Witness the burgeoning obsession with double-fried, spicy chicken, as championed by New York's Momofuku Ko and Los Angeles' Kyochon, and the meteoric rise of the Kogi BBQ truck in L.A., selling kimchi quesadillas and short rib sliders. Finally, look out for Stop and Bap, a 13-part series on PBS devoted to Korean cuisine and culture, debuting next spring and starring Jean-Georges Vongerichten and his wife, Marja. If JG says Korean is where it's at, we are true believers.
Macarons Cupcakes and pies are looking downright crusty these days. Macarons, usually made with ground almonds or almond paste, sugar, and egg whites, will be 2011's sweet sensation. These glutenfree, delicate confections are the subject of many new books, such as I Love Macarons, Macarons: Authentic French Cookie Recipes From the Macaron Café, and the upcoming Macarons. Renowned pastry chef François Payard is a fan because, as he told Epicurious, "it's more than a cookie; it's a delicate pastry. People are intrigued by the flavor and the color. It becomes so exciting, because you can change the flavors every season. So incredible!" At his François Payard Bakery in New York City and on Payard.com, the most popular varieties are passion fruit, mint chocolate, chocolate, and coffee.
Meatless Mondays & Tofu Thursdays While it's hip to go whole hog, with butchers gaining star power and roasts as the focus of many a dinner party, there is a concurrent trend of eating less meat. As we recently pointed out in Back to the Future: 10 Food Trends to Watch Over the Next Decade, the proportion of people eating no meat or less meat is growing, and the nonprofit Meatless Monday initiative no doubt has been one motivator. Meatless Monday's goal is to encourage U.S. consumers to cut their meat consumption by 15 percent for the betterment of our health and the planet. School districts from Baltimore to New Haven, Santa Barbara to Syracuse, have embraced the cause, as have more than 20 public health organizations, not to mention prominent chefs such as Marcus Samuelsson. We're forecasting that eating meat-free will be on the calendar more than once a week.
Foraging While foraging may be just a fancy term for the way humans have sourced food since time immemorial, top chefs are going beyond the farmer's market and heading to quiet pastures or untrammeled forests in search of wild greens, nuts, berries, and even bark. As The New York Times recently reported, this longtime trend exploded when it was revealed that 2010's It chef, René Redzepi of Noma in Copenhagen, is a big forager. New York's David Chang likes to make salad from lily pad shoots, while Tim Wiechmann of T.W. Food in Cambridge, Massachusetts, uses wild violets in his Frozen Violet Flower Meringue with Candied Orange and Almonds. The foraging trend will go from restaurant to kitchen table in the coming year, as foodies take trowel in hand for some "wild crafting," as it's called. Already there's the crowd-sourced Philadelphia Food Harvest Map, dotted with the locations of wineberry bushes, plum and fig trees, and other worthwhile wild things.
Tiki Bar Cocktails What's old is new again, not just in fashion but also in cocktails. Polynesian-style drinks, those multi-ingredient fruit juice and rum concoctions adorned with flowers and umbrellas, will be the quaffs of choice in 2011. Though you may be tempted to think this trend is yet another stylish symptom of the current craze for anything '60s-retro or Mad Men-inspired, the "new" tiki cocktails' roots go back even farther. Dale DeGroff, author of The Essential Cocktail and The Craft of the Cocktail and founding president of the Museum of the American Cocktail, told Epicurious, "the revival of the tiki trend, ironically, is closer to the classic tropical period right after Prohibition pioneered by Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt (a.k.a. Don the Beachcomber). The tiki movement today is coming from the craft bartending community, using fresh ingredients and attempting to find the original recipes. Julie Reiner's sophisticated take on tropical cocktails at Lani Kai in New York City is a perfect example." Try out a Planter's Punch, Mai Tai, Hurricane, or Zombie, and then join the discussion with the rest of the neo-Polynesian crowd on Critiki. Or get ahead of the curve by visiting one of the tiki bars listed on Tiki Central.
Pop-Up Cafés
Urban Wineries
Food trucks are as ubiquitous as, well, trucks, but the freewheeling, catch-as-catch-can insta-restaurants are now picking up steam. Why? Little capital, resources, or planning is needed, and chefs have greater freedom to try out menu items, restaurant themes, and locations. Chefs can create their own venues, in art galleries, public areas, or their own homes, as did Ben Greeno of London's Tudor Road. In Los Angeles, chef Ludo Lefebvre opened what he calls a "guerilla style pop-up restaurant," LudoBites. And Top Chef's Stephanie Izard (of Girl and the Goat in Chicago) started out with an "underground" place called Wandering Goat, which enabled her to preview her menu and generate publicity. Meanwhile, San Francisco is leading the trend, with a multitude of pop-ups, no doubt a reflection, at least in part, of the city's high rents and overcrowded restaurant scene. Eat Restaurant holds a monthly dinner in different locales so chef Tommy Halvorson can run the stoves without running his credit line. (We've even had our own pop-up restaurant, Epicurious Entertains NYC.) Look for more of these in 2011.
Move over, canning. The DIY trend is moving Sideways, enabling you to become the Mondavi of your block. At the Brooklyn Winery, oenophiles learn the process of taking grapes from vine to vintage, doing the de-stemming, crushing, and pressing and then bottling their own wine. At Cork This! Winery, in Montgomery, Texas, wine lovers can bottle the stuff and personalize the label. And at San Diego's Carruth Cellars Winery, Adam Carruth blends, ages, and bottles right in the middle of a city block. Could urban-wine tasting tours be next?
Sweet Potatoes This sweet root vegetable, bursting with beta-carotene and fiber, is finally getting the love it so deserves. With this fall's bumper crop estimated at two billion pounds, more prominence on restaurant menus (not just in fry form), and an impressive nutritional profile, the sweet potato will be crowned the Vegetable of 2011. According to The New York Times, ConAgra just opened a plant devoted to processing frozen sweet potato products, and Google searches for the root vegetable (OK, albeit in fry form) have jumped 40 percent from last year. Chefs love them for their flavor, texture, and color: Sarah Stegner of Chicago's Prairie Grass Café and Prairie Fire serves up Stuffed Sweet Potato Bread French Toast with Cream Cheese Filling. At DC Coast in Washington, D.C., chef Brendan Cox makes Sweet Potato Panzotti with Sage, Guanciale, and Toasted Hazelnut.
Pimentón de La Vera You may never have heard of this ingredient, but chances are you've used its less smoky cousin many times. A specialty of Spain's La Vera region, this smoked paprika is a building block of Spanish cuisine. It lends a sweet heat to roast and grilled meats, paellas, sauces, and soups. Because of the widespread popularity of Spanish cuisine, Pimentón de La Vera is gaining traction stateside, on restaurant menus and with specialty stores and online retailers. While all paprika is ground from a mix of Capsicum annuum peppers, the flavor is determined by the type of red chiles used, whether or not seeds are added, and the processing method. In La Vera, the chiles are smoked over an oak fire for two weeks before being carefully ground. The spice of tomorrow!
Technomic Predicts 11 Trends for 2011 www.nationsrestaurantnews.com Nov. 18, 2010
Article by Mark Brandau
Restaurant operators can’t be certain about much for 2011, as recent improvements in guest traffic, same-store sales and hiring are far from guaranteed to continue. About the only thing they can expect as they hope for traction in the economy’s wobbly recovery is that the industry will continue to look different than it does today. In forecasting what changes may lie ahead, Chicago-based market research firm Technomic Inc. identified 11 restaurant industry trends for next year.
1. Action in adult beverages Technomic predicts that as optimism grows in 2011, consumers will want to celebrate with some higher-end alcoholic drinks. As such, retro cocktails and high-end spirits may get more play at fine-dining and independent establishments, craft beers could gain in popularity against their mass-market counterparts, and fast-casual concepts could turn to alcohol as a way to differentiate themselves. Casual-dining chain Ruby Tuesday already has positioned itself to get ahead of this trend, offering $5 premiumwell cocktails and craft beers as part of an expanded beverage program that debuted with a rebranding. There also are several smart-phone apps like Find Craft Beer and Happy Houred that will list nearby restaurants offering specialty microbrews.
2. Beyond bricks and mortar Food trucks are poised to move beyond New York and Los Angeles into more U.S. cities. Not only will gourmet food trucks proliferate, Technomic said, but traditional restaurants also will begin using the tactic as a way to extend their brands into new areas or add revenue streams like catering. Chains like Qdoba, Sizzler, Dairy Queen and Gold Star Chili already have done this. Regulatory agencies in cities with a new food truck presence will be scrambling to keep up.
6. Frugality fatigue Consumers who are able to treat themselves again in 2011 will do so — meaning that restaurants with a few indulgent menu items or experiences could see an uptick in orders of high-margin and high-price-point dishes. This could spell opportunity not only for casual-dining chains to entice diners with more premium dishes like the Flavor-Loaded Steaks at Applebee’s, but also for higher-end chains like Fleming’s Prime and Morton’s to attract new customers with their bar menus, as they’ve done throughout the downturn. Technomic also predicted that more gastropubs would pop up next year.
7. How low can you go? On the other hand, customers will continue to demand everyday value when dining out, Technomic said. As part of any balanced-menu strategy, restaurants should have permanent value fixtures available, not just limited-time offers. In its most recent earnings call, quick-service chain Wendy’s said its value-driven LTOs did well with marketing support, but dropped off when advertising was pulled back, which necessitated the reformulation and promotion of its latest everyday-value lineup, “My 99,” with seven items for 99 cents.
8. Carefully calibrated brand action More restaurant concepts will update brand positioning through remodels and new formats, Technomic predicted. Many chains have begun on that front already, beginning with the debut this month of a fast-casual café variant for family dining brand Denny’s, which also foresees future growth in nontraditional locations on college campuses. In a move to bolster carryout sales, Bob Evans has added a “Taste of the Farm” grab-and-go area to five of its locations, and plans to remodel 30 to 35 more units over the next six months. McDonald’s also plans to remodel hundreds of units this year and next, continuing its image update featuring highlights like the McCafe beverage lineup and free Wi-Fi in its stores.
3. Farmers as celebrities The era of the celebrity chef may soon give way to that of the star farmer. Look for more attention to be paid to producers and suppliers on menus across the nation as a growing back-to-thesource mentality takes hold in the industry, Technomic said. Farmers and producers may soon be high-profile spokesmen for restaurants and host more special events and dinners. At the chain level, Chipotle Mexican Grill and Domino’s Pizza have made their sourcing integral to their marketing — Chipotle with its “Food With Integrity” campaign and Domino’s with its commercials taking place on a dairy farm.
9. Back to our roots
4. Social media & technology: evolutionary spurt
“Retailers have been encroaching on restaurant turf for some time,” Technomic said, “but now the hottest action is among conveniencestore operators upgrading their foodservice, where margins are 40 percent to 60 percent instead of the 5 percent typical for gas.” Restaurants can prevent customer defection to C-stores by focusing on their differentiated menu items, ambience and service, Technomic said, while others can fight back by taking some of their signatures into grocery stores, as Starbucks, California Pizza Kitchen and P.F. Chang’s have.
Look for more restaurants to gain a competitive edge with new technologies and applications, including kiosks for ordering and displaying nutritional information, iPads containing wine lists, and hand-held devices for tableside payments. Widespread adoption of location-based social media has a lot of room for scale, indicated not only by megachains Starbucks and McDonald’s piloting uses for Facebook Deals, but also by CKE Restaurants’ development of its own location-based mobile app, Happy Star Rewards.
5. Korean and beyond “The Korean taco — an only-in-America synthesis of Korean-style fillings and a Mexican format — signals the rise of Korean barbecue and Korean food in general,” Technomic writes. While that item made famous by Los Angeles food truck Kogi Korean BBQ-to-Go has the potential to touch off a proliferation of street foods and small plates across the industry, other restaurant dishes may incorporate traditional Korean flavors like kimchee and short rib.
Consumers will continue to turn to comfort foods when dining out, Technomic projected, creating demand for traditional Southern foods, retro Italian favorites like meatballs, or gourmet updates to nostalgic favorites like doughnuts and popsicles. There also could be more opportunities for family-style service and family-size portions, like the fare offered at Italian dinnerhouse Buca di Beppo, especially if more families have reasons to celebrate in the new year.
10. New competition from C-stores
11. Healthful versus indulgent The balance that restaurants usually strike between healthful and not-so-healthful food items could get complicated in 2011 when many menu-labeling requirements take effect. One possible trend emerging from the new regulations could be an upswing in limited-time offers, which are exempt from nutritional data-disclosure requirements. Technomic also predicted more moves to reformulate entire menus with an eye toward health, like Taco Bell’s recent test of a lower-sodium menu, and more menus advertised as under a certain number of calories, similar to Applebee’s under-550-calorie lineup.
Pies Top 2011 Restaurant Trend List www.nationsrestaurantnews.com Oct. 21, 2010
Article by Ron Ruggless
• Pies, both sweet and savory, will be the top restaurant trend in 2011, a California consultancy predicts. Andrew Freeman, whose Andrew Freeman & Co. of San Francisco consults on marketing for restaurants and hotels nationwide, detailed some top trends in a recent webinar. “If I had one trend — one trend — of the year that I could predict, that’s why it’s in the No. 1 position, this would be the trend for pie," he said. "I think that we’re going to make room for pie shops in the next year.” He said it follows on the heels of cupcake shops. Freeman noted that Hill Country Chicken in New York City even sponsors a “Pie Happy Hour” to showcase its wide variety of pies from whiskey-buttermilk to apple-cheddar and more traditional banana and coconut cream pies. “This is not just sweet pies, this is savory pies, bite-sized pies. They are even blended into milkshakes,” he said. “I’ll eat pie if I don’t get this one right at the end of the year.”
• Vegetables. “There are even restaurants that are going meatless Mondays,” Freeman said. “The reason is the celebration of gardens and farms and relationships with farmers.”
• Fried vegetables. Once-obscure vegetables are getting the crisp treatment with such items as fried Brussels sprouts, fried cauliflower and turnip chips.
• Soft-serve. Chefs are using soft-serve ice cream machines to produce savory flavors as well as more exotic flavors, such as the coconut-water soft serve with brownie bites at Belly Shack in Chicago.
• High-end junk food. “I feel that munchies we grew up on are going to show up with interpretations done by chefs in really the most unique ways,” Freeman said, suggesting house-made Cheetos, Bugles, Slim Jims and jerky.
• Popsicles. Similar to the soft-serve trend, iced treats are showing up in flavors such as sugar-snap pea.
• Yogurt. It will show up as sun-dried, freeze-dried, smoked and
Other trends noted by Freeman included:
pressed and in imported variations such as skyr from Iceland and labne from Lebanon.
• The new mom and pop. Self-financed restaurants built on
• Swede inspiration. As a trend-influencing region,
limited budgets are growing in number. “This is an economic decision,” he said. “There are a lot of people out there who still want to open up restaurants, and it’s a good opportunity to look at real estate in a down economy.” The restaurants are typically small and the owners are extremely involved. Some examples are eVe in Berkeley, Calif., and Sons & Daughters in San Francisco.
• Breads. “Chefs are doing signature breads that they are serving as if they were a course,” Freeman said, citing the Popovers at Wayfare Tavern in San Francisco.
• One-ingredient restaurants. “Restaurateurs are taking
prices rise, producing such dishes as the lamb-belly watercress BLT at the Lonesome Dove in Fort Worth, Texas.
one ingredient and building full restaurants around them,” Freeman said. Following on the several-year trend of gourmet burgers, the trend is extending to grilled cheese sandwiches, hot dogs and sliders. “We’re predicting perhaps a peanut butter restaurant next or a big biscuit restaurant,” he said.
• Mini plates. “Small plates were the big buzz word over the last couple of years,” Freeman said. “This year mini is the new buzz word. Mini everything: mini portions, mini desserts.” The reason, he said, is it fits into tighter budgets. “Everybody wants a little more of everything. Our sense of wanting to be satisfied and fulfilled and experience as much as possible is really, really key.” • Multi-purpose spaces. Eataly in New York is an example. “We are going to see markets opening in the corners of restaurants,” he said.
• Minimal menus. “A couple of years ago, we found a lot of
the Scandinavian countries are now invading U.S. menus.
• Bellies. Goat and lamb belly are showing up on menus as pork-belly
TOP 10 INGREDIENT TRENDS As far as popular ingredients go, Freeman suggests more influence by:
1) Neck. Lamb, beef, goat and pork neck. 2) Whey. In salads and sauces. 3) Kumquats. In salads, relishes and desserts. 4) Pimento cheese. Smooth, spreadable, spicy and nostalgic. 5) Smoking. Smoked olive oil, cumin and butter.
people were getting very wordy and descriptive in their jargon on their menus,” Freeman said. Eleven Madison Park in New York focuses on ingredients.
6) Hay. Used for roasting and smoking, such as the leeks
• Dirt. Abandoning sauces, some chefs are turning to dried, crumbled, powdered ingredients to add texture and flavor. Noma in Copenhagen, Denmark, offers radishes with toasted-malt “dirt.” Such a technique may be used by chef Dominique Crenn, who plans to open a restaurant in San Francisco in January.
7) Hummus. In sauces, spreads and ingredients. 8) Popcorn. In various courses, such as the popcorn ice cream at Carneros Bistro & Wine Bar in Sonoma, Calif.
• Hearth-healthy. Wood-fired ovens will be used to roast
bit-covered crab cake at David Burke Townhouse in New York.
roasted on hay at Castagna Restaurant in Portland, Ore.
9) Pretzels. Pretzel sticks and used as a crust, like in the pretzel-
vegetables and larger cuts of meat and whole animals.
• Hot dogs and sausage shops. Examples include Brats Dogs & Wieners in New York. “They are moving from stands into restaurants,” Freeman said.
10) Honey. Chefs are developing partnerships with local beekeepers for use in sauces and dressings.
Food & Dining Trends in Restaurants & Hotels 2011 Joseph Baum & Michael Whiteman Co. Inc. - International Restaurant Consultants Joseph Baum & Michael Whiteman Co. creates high-profile restaurants around the world for hotels, restaurant companies, major museums and other consumer destinations. Based in New York, their projects include the late Windows on the World and the magical Rainbow Room, Equinox in Singapore, the world’s first food courts, and five three-star restaurants in New York, and numerous first-class hotels. Their 15 new predictions follow.
#1 Old Italian is Newly Respectable All those old Italian chestnuts, from meatballs to eggplant parm, are getting new focus. The Meatball Shop in New York (five kinds, four gravies) has endless lines and will generate lookalike startups in 2011. Disney opened a Meatball and Beer Bar (also four kinds). Totonno’s in Georgia is trying to franchise a meatball shop. Fancy sandwich shops are nostalgically menuing them, along with eggplant parm, as hero sandwiches with social aspirations. Lincoln, Jonathan Benno’s (ex Per Se) new restaurant, has a rarified lasagna – in a $20 million facility. Meatball Mondays and all-you-can-eat spaghetti nights are on the rise. The Negroni is being rediscovered by bartenders and while it won’t be the drink of 2011, it bears examining. Also growing: Consumer recognition of ancient and regional Italian grapes: bonarda, aglianico, vermentino, negroarmaro. Artisan pizza boutiques are spreading everywhere, many adding mozzarella bars to their menus, making the stuff in-house and serving it still warm. Unfamiliar but authentic regional Italian ingredients are jazzing up old favorites: lardo, mostarda (mustard fruit), burrata (this one’s important), salsa verde (not the Mexican kind), speck (smoked prosciutto), tongue, oxtail, pigs’ feet, head
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cheese, guanciale (pork cheeks), tripe (I’m getting that offal feeling again!). Look for more inventive pesto recipes, too. Olive Garden, Carraba, Macaroni Grill and their competitors aren’t playing in this ball field, which will widen the gap between Italian for the masses and Italian for the classes who, by the way, appear not to have been humbled by the great recession and possess serious risk money to try these unfamiliar items (see last sentence of Trend #2).
#2 Good News at the Top With financial sector employees not feeling the rest of the country’s economic pain, business will return to upscale restaurants, especially contemporary ones. Average spend may not rebound fully, and lunches will still be weak, but at least seats will be filled at dinner – and not necessarily with coupon-bearing bargain hunters who are something of a plague among recession-battered mid-priced casual restaurants (see Trend #15).
#3 Stealth Competitors Creeping Up The restaurant industry’s being blind-sided by new forms of nonrestaurant competition. Drug stores and convenience stores are ramping up their food departments with newly conceived fresh “grab-and-go” departments. Look for Walgreen’s to copy big displays of branded items from its Duane Reade chain in New York, with other drug chains already loading up their front-of-store reach-in refrigerators with packaged salads, sandwiches and sweets. Convenience stores are doing the same as both try taking a bite out of supermarket expenditures and – more important to us – out of restaurant revenue. Most vulnerable are fast feeders, fast-casual operators and dinner houses that promote curbside pickup – because they’re facing lower-priced alternatives for consumers in a hurry. If C-stores increase their appeal to women, the damage will get worse.
Joseph Baum & Michael Whiteman Co. Inc. - International Restaurant Consultants Stores-within-stores: Watch fast food chains opening inside C- stores and in supermarkets, chasing after their own customers; more upscale chains and chef-branded ventures within department stores can’t be far behind. Meanwhile food trucks are multiplying like crazy, bringing food to where customers are and restaurants aren’t (see below) or even right outside existing restaurants.
#4 Bricks-and-Mortar vs. Meals-on-Wheels Food trucks, trawling for customers across the country, are driving restaurant owners nuts. They have big competitive advantages: low investment, no rent, no air conditioning, no utilities hookups, no real estate taxes, no dining rooms or waitstaff, no reservationists -- and marketing costs reduced to Twitter and an iPhone. In a replay of bricks-and-mortar vs. e-businesses (think Amazon, a winner; think Blockbuster, a loser), established restaurateurs are pushing for local laws restricting these caravans, probably a no-win game; LA’s recent regulations will slow them down but not stop the spread. Catching on around the country: Food truck “rodeos” where a dozen or more vendors turn an empty field or parking lot into a food fair on wheels. If you can’t beat ‘em: Look for more restaurant operators and big-name chefs to supplement their businesses by chasing after customers with their own trucks. Will there be too many trucks chasing too few customers? Wait till 2012.
#5 Korean Food and the Nothing-Is-Sacred Taco Big irony: We’ve long been predicting Korean dishes as the next big cuisine, but they haven’t gained much traction outside of Korean neighborhoods – except in food trucks where they’ve been mashed together with Mexican tacos. Kogi, the seminal Los Angeles
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food truck that launched a thousand wheels, features Latino tacos filled with Korean ingredients, now being copycatted profusely. This will lend legitimacy to Korean flavors, and bulgogi, bibimbap and kimchee will enter America’s gastronomic lexicon. In Philadelphia, the world-food restaurant Meritage has been serving Korean short rib tacos at the bar, and Wednesday nights this summer featured Korean fried chicken for two, so word is getting around. Publicity surrounding the Momofuko chain also will give Korean a push. But the wrapper will become more important than its contents: Look for an outburst of outrageously creative multi-culti tacos, soft and hard, from fast food to haute cuisineries. Watch for American chefs on reconnaissance patrols to LA and New York Koreatowns. And wait for a big breakout: A “big deal” Korean restaurant that is marketed to non-Koreans.
#6 Popsicles going global and artisan -and what it means In our 2008 Trend Forecast we urged our readers and clients to investigate “paletas” – chunky, fruit-filled Mexican ice pops with awesome flavors such as mango-chile or jicama-orange. Three years later, these niche items are becoming trendy. Gourmet ice pops are popping up filled with all sorts of exotica – mostly small batch products riding the wave of “fresh” and “locally made.” In New York, La Newyorkina sells flavors like tamarind and passionfruit, and People's Pops (so seasonal-artisanal it shuts down after summer) creates treats-on-a-stick like roasted red plum, blackberry-black tea, and pear-ginger. In Raleigh and surrounding towns, Locopops hawks pomegranate-tangerine, Mexican chocolate and orange-mango-ancho. For real excitement, explore paleterias in California’s Mexican enclaves, where intensely flavored ice pops are filled with chunks of vibrant ingredients – so you get deep texture, too.
Joseph Baum & Michael Whiteman Co. Inc. - International Restaurant Consultants Our point isn’t about the ice pop trend, which may be co-opted by larger manufacturers, but about the flavors. Keep an eye out for ingredient combos like these in new wave cocktails, house-made sodas (another small trend), house-made salad dressings, even sauces for savory main courses (orange-mango-ancho ribs anyone?)
#7 Making Customers Unwelcome Economically gun-shy consumers increasingly will face an unwelcome mat rolled out by restaurateurs trying to save a buck here and there. Look for more restaurants putting no credit card signs in their windows; eliminating reservations; upping the price of wines-by- the-glass while these wines appear nowhere on the list; no tablecloths; trying to ration the time people can occupy a table. These tactics might generate an operator’s total profit in lean times but they do nothing for hearts and minds of customers.
#8 How Does Your Garden Grow, Mrs. Obama? The president’s point person in the war on waistlines assembled 500 chefs on the White House lawn this past summer, many themselves large-waisted, to help school kids get better food. The restaurant industry responded by cranking up the fat and calories. Denny’s stuffed its grilled cheese sandwich with fried mozzarella sticks. Friendly’s wrapped its hamburgers with a pair of grilled cheese sandwiches, one on top, the other on the bottom. Burger King’s Whopper Bar in New York opened with an undertaker’s delight containing four whopper patties, pepperoni, mozzarella and two sauces in a pizza-size bun -- cut so, in theory, it can be shared. Once again, gross is good – so look for chains to concoct more calorie bombs in 2011 – even while attempting to show that
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they’re greening their businesses (without any system of verification). People will gobble them up because they’re feeling lousy about losing their jobs and their houses, and gobs of fat are neurotically comforting. Watch for restaurant “snacks” to swell up, burritos almost as big as your head, one-pound meatballs, whoopee pies looking like Frisbees, maybe even monster donuts, all with calorie-count labels that we predict will largely be ignored – except at the margins. People buying multiple snacks during the day will actually skip a traditional meal, knocking their nutritional intake seriously off-kilter. Ever more books will tell us how to farm, shop and eat ethically and responsibly, while indefatigable Jamie Oliver finds that changing America’s eating habits is a tough row to hoe. Have Mrs. Obama’s initiatives been in vain? Is the world not listening to the highly publicized advocates of better eating? Take heart: Journalists are listening. Chipotle’s president did a photo op with Jamie Oliver honking at all the additives in processed food. WalMart and Target will soon buy more “local” produce. Increasing numbers of thin-waisted upper-crusters will pay $2 for a holy tomato at burgeoning farmers markets, or a buck for an organic egg; and upscale hotel chefs will tend heirloom vegetable gardens and beehives on their rooftops to feed their fancy clientele.
#9 Breakfast All the Time Morning food business grew fast when the economy went to hell; and then leveled off. But... so many chains will jump into the business that we predict excess serving capacity before 2011 is over. Jamba Juice, TCBY, Wendy’s (trying for the third time), Burger King ramping up a.m. menus, Taco Bell, pizza chains thinking about it for the second time in a decade, frozen yogurt chains testing breakfast items. Meanwhile the
Joseph Baum & Michael Whiteman Co. Inc. - International Restaurant Consultants four big gorillas –McD, Starbucks, Dunkin’ and Subway, which began morning service this year (23,000+ units!) -- will battle everyone to the last egg sandwich.
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deliver fresh fruits and vegetables -- in which case Mrs. Obama will indeed have made some headway (see Trend #9 above).
At the other end of the price spectrum, soft slow-cooked eggs are appearing all over upscale restaurant menus. They’re comforting; they turn fancy dishes into homey offerings; and their oozing yolks are cheap substitutes for a sauce. Runny eggs on pasta, on pizza, on braised meats, glamorizing a bowl of tripe; on truffled toast as stand-alone first courses; breaded and fried poached eggs on salads. And on grits (see below)...
Sodium in fast food is in the cross-hairs and could well become a bad food poster boy in dinnerhouses, too. Chain menus, already riddled with disclaimers, will resemble scholarly papers with footnotes about being gluten-free and lactose-free, and disclaiming use of MSG, high-fructose corn syrup, bisphenol-A, rBGH (bovine growth hormone), GMO (genetically modified), along with more newly discovered allergens. Look for more gluten-replacing starches on menus: quinoa (could be a big winner in 2011), chickpeas, grits.
#10 Grits will leap from morning food to an all-purpose starch
#12 Wife Swapping ... but with Restaurants
– part of another trendlet: down-home southern cooking. Shrimp and grits could well be the dish-of-the-year (see “Free From” below)
#11 “Free From” Gluten-free menus will grow this coming year even though a minuscule portion of the population suffers from celiac disease. But allergy sufferers aren’t the issue: Consumers are increasingly convinced that anything added to food is objectionable – and phases like gluten- and lactose-free somehow sound healthful and reassuring, and perhaps organic – even though this is irrational. It is part of a “free from” push that originated in England, applied to food products contained no “nasties.” Years ago restaurant menus sprouted little hearts to denote healthy food, with no lasting impact – but this appears to have legs. Justifiably aggressive language from critics of school lunches could spill over first into supermarkets and then food service. And vending machines in hospitals and schools are being retooled to
The recession created lots of empty restaurants and lots of chefs with no kitchens. So we now have popup restaurants – restaurants, like food trucks, with no location at all. Impromptu food places will pop up all over – some for a night, some for a week. Chefs, often multi-starred, get to strut their stuff, often serving food they’d never dare put on a permanent menu, then go off to the next gig. They’re unburdened by long-term leases and ongoing overhead. Customers first found these popups via Twitter and word of mouth, but now popups are treated in the press alongside major restaurant openings. Next up: Kitchen swapping. Big name chefs will trade kitchens for a night or two which, like wife swapping, keeps life lively for diners as well as chefs. Some chefs now have permanent one-night stands, taking over humble dives or diners once every week. Often with only one or two dozen seats, snagging a place at these popups will become something of a status symbol and a culinary adventure. Coming next: Rotating bartenders spreading the news about their exotic cocktails. And popups run by food and booze companies to show off their wares.
Joseph Baum & Michael Whiteman Co. Inc. - International Restaurant Consultants
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#13 A Sandwich By Any Other Name
#14 Past Their Sell-By Date
Last year it was gussied up hot dogs and gourmet hamburgers. Next year it’ll be sandwiches over the moon but they’ll be called something else. There are cemitas coming to where you live – Mexican sandwiches with high flavor profiles and juiciness (here’s one: black bean spread, queso blanco, warm crisp-fried chicken cutlet, lots of mayo, pickled jalapeños, avocado, and iceberg lettuce). Get a cemita with head cheese and you’re halfway to banh mi – Vietnamese sandwiches taking over the world with their paté and pickled vegetable fillings now mutating into other glorious flavor combinations (here’s one: liver paté, head cheese, jalapeños, pickled carrot and daikon shreds, bbq pork, sweet mayo and lots of cilantro in a warm banguette). There’s an Asianesque meatball version making the rounds, too.
Artisan hot dogs with inventive toppings will be on the downslide. Gourmet hamburgers will peak; too many players in a crowded field. Slapping bacon onto everything will be so-last-year. The novelty of increasingly expensive pork belly will wear off. Cupcakes will peak.
Be on the lookout for baos ̧ which traditionally are yeasty steamed buns with savory fillings – but are now being formed as fluffy flatbreads to wrap around banh mi-like ingredients. Tartines have grown from a slice of bread with a simple spread to fancified open-face sandwiches with $15 price tags. Also look for more regional American and ethnic sandwiches. Perhaps the most outrageous – with lines out the door – is a twounit #7 Sub Shop where they insert an oddball, taste-jangling ingredient into every item: Eggplant Parm with fontina, yellow squash, pickled jalapeños and bbq potato chips; or braised lamb with peanut butter, mint jelly and pappadam. Prochetta is a filling to watch. Traditional Cuban sandwiches started taking off but then crashed because, let’s face it, they’re pretty boring. Except at Ironsides in San Francisco: pork shoulder brined in orange juice and molasses, chipotle aioli, ham, gruyere, pickles. Chains like Panera are tiptoeing around the trend, but their customers – especially suburban ones -- need to be brought along slowly. Seeing success with far-out ingredients, several big-name chefs are toying with their own very upscale sandwich shops.
#15 Going Collaborative Two trends are at work here: The tendency of younger people to work collaboratively, meaning they make joint decisions about almost everything; and the linkup of various restaurant websites and apps. Group couponing and location-based here’s-where-I am sites are grabbing hold of what used to be restaurant-generated promotions, pushing recession battered restaurants to provide deep discounts. Groupon, Village Vines, Open Table all now are access points for reservations and for bargain hunters – and many will try to replicate the Zagat-Foursquare-Tastespotting on linkup smartphones, so you find recommendations, deals and even fotos of food you and your friends might like all more or less in one place. This could create irresistible pressure on restaurateurs who haven’t got their own mass to push back. Conventional reservations and marketing programs will be bypassed – so will old-media critics without new platforms – and many restaurants will lose control of how they market themselves and how they price their food, providing a stream of profits for electronic middlemen. Purely speculative: What would happened if six friends made their own reservations at a restaurant ... and demanded a discount similar to what was commanded by Groupon? Frightening! ___________________________________________________________ Joseph Baum & Michael Whiteman Co.have run trends seminars for Taj Hotels, Mumbai; Starwood Asia-Pacific, Bangkok; Certified Angus Beef Convention, Scottsdale; Culinary Institute of America, Napa Valley; Les Dames d’Escoffier Convention, Philadelphia; Club Corporation of America Convention, Austin.
BUZZWORDS for 2011 Coconut water, awash in a mythology of good health; bourbon, for people who actually like booze; cucumbers, lavender and hibiscus, especially in cocktails; upscale food courts; umami along with stealth use of miso; sangria with new twists; peppadew; fancy poutine, a Canadian calorie bomb, could have a US trend life of a year; macarons, not macaroons; whoopee pie; Korean spicing and condiments; pesto variations; newfangled machines vending fresh fruit and vegetables; designer donuts imitating froufrou cupcakes; meatballs; burrata; tacos with global and wacky fillings; convenience store cuisine; artisan ice pops; “free from” food labels; popup restaurants; fregola, a pasta from Sardinia; Greek yogurt; ever-larger “snacks” and multiple snacks replacing meals; meatless Mondays; reinvented grits and down-home Southern cooking; and isn’t anyone tired yet of black kale?