][1]Yesterday we predicted that 2011 would be the year of the pie. Today we will make several similarly rash predictions about the culinary trends of the future.
Be warned, they are fairly random.
OK, so this one is fairly obvious but I reckon that we’re going to see more and more Scandic influences creeping in. Rene Redzepi at Noma is the hot chef of the moment and his elemental cooking style is infiltrating various foodie mags.
Like El Bulli, most of us will never eat there but Redzepi’s influence will ripple out. It ties in with lots of existing trends such as eating locally produced food, reinventing traditional national dishes and foraging. Not that many people do actually forage but look out for menus that make a big play of foraged fungi and herbs. Expect to see words such as ‘soused, pickled, smoked, dried’ and ‘cured’ appearing on more restaurant menus.
More Mexican food. Burritos seem to be undergoing something of a boom at the moment. In Edinburgh, relative newcomers such as Illegal Jack’s and Los Cardos are both going great guns as is the more established Bibi’s in Glasgow.
It’s daft to predict the end of a trend on the basis of one restaurant but . . . Tapas International in Glasgow recently transformed itself into Green Chilli, a restaurant specialising in desi or home cooking style Indian food. Could this be the beginning of the end for serving any old cuisine in quarter portions, calling it tapas and hoping it sells?
Meat free Mondays. I’m not a big fan of this one but it looks set to grow. It might be ecologically sound but if you think we should eat less meat then just scoff smaller portions of the stuff throughout the week. Why avoid it for one day? All this denial smacks of hair shirts and Puritanism to me.
Flexi-menus. The traditional idea of restaurants being open for lunch and dinner was dying out anyway but the recession is speeding the process up. Restaurateurs are having to work harder than ever to turn a profit. Expect more restaurants to be open for breakfast, elevenses, lunch, afternoon, tea, dinner and all points in between.