Top chefs share food and restaurant trends
Chefs always roll their eyes when asked to share a key food and restaurant trend, but ask them to tell you if they are seeing increased demand for a particular ingredient, dish, style of cuisine or dining experience and they break open into a smile. So here are the musings of international celeb chefs and their emerging peers as shared with me in New York for the #TasteofWaldorf event.
- Chefs Pierre Gagnaire and Roel Lintermans (his executive chef at Waldorf Astoria Berlin’s Le Solistes restaurant): Healthy eating and transparency in sourcing. We are more aware of what we eat and where it comes from.
- Chef Chris Kajioka: Menus driven by vegetables, with less focus on meat and seafood.
- Chef Heinz Beck: It’s all about eating healthy. We are what we eat.
- Chef David Posey: Pairing down ingredients on a plate.
- Chef Jeff Galvin: Non-formality. Dining is social and company is the most important thing. Injecting fun into fine dining. People want more freedom but still demand quality. [His paired chef Cara Stadler was in the midst of opening a new restaurant].
- Chef Jimmy Schmidt: Going back to roots with original, traditional recipes.
- Chef Eduardo Ruiz: Street food is becoming very popular.
- Chef Jan van Dyk: Organic and cared for produce where the source is known. Straight from the farm to the plate. A move away from mass production.
- Chef Marjorie Meek-Bradley: People are suddenly going crazy for bone broth, which is basically stock that we have all been making for years! Handcrafted produce.
I interviewed the five-paired chefs separately, yet many concur that the demand for healthy food using produce sourced sustainably and transparently is on the rise. For my take on this year’s food and restaurant trends, here’s an earlier post including links to international predictions.
By the way, I am on a mission to reduce the word count of my posts (restaurant reviews excluded) so I’d welcome your feedback on this direction.
What’s your take on these trends? Any more to add?
And for more on #TasteofWaldorf, here’s a podcast from my radio chat on Dubai Eye 103.8FM’s Travel Show (scroll to LitFest 2015 3 and 4 – 3rd March).
A bientôt.
FooDiva. x
Very interesting – one thing that chefs have told me is that there is a trend to using small plates as the dishes (such as slow cooked brisket, braised pork shoulder and ceviche-style seafood) can generally be served at any time and are seen as ways to help dieters avoid overindulging.
Another trend seems to be Tea mixology which involves infusing simple tea with a variety of herbs and spices. For me there is nothing better than a good cup of Assam Tea but it appears that I am very much in the minority