][1]The last couple of 5pm Dining blogs have looked at how well our predictions for last year fared and our food forecasts for this coming year.
Today, we hand over to the experts. We have drawn on Baum + Whiteman in the States; London’s Lost in Catering, Olive magazine and the What’s Hot in 2014 from America’s National Restaurant Association.
There’s a hefty American influence in there but we make no apologies for that. Just look how influential American foods such as hot dogs, burgers and Southern BBQ were in 2013.
Local, sustainable and healthy will continue to be big drivers of what we eat (or what we say we want to eat) but we can hardly point to them as new trends.
Incidentally, this 5pm blogger will be on Good Morning Scotland at around 8.40 this morning in order to blether about the humble cauliflower’s new found fashionable status.
On the way up?
Latin American food – ceviche is big in London and the World Cup in Brazil won’t hurt. Cachaca caipirinhas and pisco sours to wash it down.
Quinoa and other grains will be more common as a replacement for meat protein. By the end of 2014, teff and freekeh won’t sound like baddies from Dr Who.
Drinking vinegars
Preserving, pickling and fermenting are tipped as soon to be fashionable techniques. An offshoot of this will be sour drinks such as Vietnamese drinking vinegars. Also look out for house-cured charcuterie.
][11]Chef producers and kitchen farms will be in. In Edinburgh, Café St Honore and Centotre already grow some of their own ingredients.
Vegetables are the new meat, apparently. Enjoy those cauliflower steaks and cauliflower wings.
Chook soars
Not so fast, veggies. Some people are advising that top notch chook could be the trendy food du jour. Look out for well brought up, whole chickens appearing on menus in the same way that chateaubriands of steak already do.
Vermouth, long relegated to the back of the booze cupboard, is predicted to boom. The blog already does a splendid Negroni, you will be pleased to hear.
Pre-prepped cocktails go upmarket. Forget Smirnoff Ice and WKD. Go to White Lyan where pre-bottled cocktails mean less waste and fast serving time without compromising on quality. Also see barrel-aged drinks.
Knobbly spoon, sir?
Look out for enhanced sensory experience restaurants. Dining in the dark is old hat. Think knobbly spoons and cups with nipples or music and visuals designed to complement each dish. Pretentious, moi?
Israeli cookery is forecast to be hip. Again.
Faster food. Spend all night in a restaurant? Nope.
Affordable tasting menus. No longer the preserve of fine dining restaurants with fine dining prices.
Finally, ethic-inspired breakfasts, such as coconut milk pancakes and shakshouka, are said to be set for great things.
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