CULINARY TRENDS: Year-end Excitement Merits Individual Evaluation
CULINARY TRENDS: Year-end Excitement Merits Individual Evaluation
H. H. Williams put it best when he said, "Furious activity is no substitute for understanding." With the approaching end of each calendar year, restaurateurs can look forward to the National Restaurant Association (NRA) release of survey data collected from chefs of the American Culinary Federation. Specifically, these chefs predict the hot trends for the coming year, as well as new dishes and twists on old favorites. This time of the year, other notable industry experts and trend watchers around the world speculate and reveal their opinions on what will be the most talked about items expecting to surface in popular dining spots for the coming year.
The chefs rank and list culinary items into the following categories: hot trends, yesterday's news, and perennial favorites. Items can range from unique ingredients that will show up in the year's dishes, to menu philosophies, themes, and what cocktails and beverages are expected to be listed in the winner's cup of recipe favorites.
Obviously, for a successful operation, restaurateurs must keep menus fresh and adopt trends that correspond to what customers want. However, should all chefs and restaurateurs rush to adopt all of the year-end trends? One cannot discount professional advice, and suggestions from professional chefs are great and can influence restaurateurs into adopting new menu items. However, each individual restaurant owner must evaluate which trends are right for their venue before becoming overly excited and jumping on the bandwagon to introduce new or revamped dishes.
So how does a chef or restaurateur decide on what trends to adopt? What if the trends turn out to be short-lived fads not worthy of implementation? Much of the decision making can be accomplished by simply asking yourself and answering the following few questions.
1.How does the trend make sense for your restaurant?
When deciding on what new trend to incorporate, first look at what your current menu features and what type of items your clientele prefer. For example, if your customers prefer steak, introducting pheasant may not be the best choice for your restaurant. Restaurateurs simply must stay true to their menu philosophy and provide the dishes their customers continually want and prefer to eat.
2.What are the capabilities of the kitchen?
Thinking ahead, determine if your kitchen is properly suited, equipped, and capable of storing new, trendy items. If additions or modifications must be made to adopt new menu items, is the item going to be in high enough demand at your venue to justify the expense? For example, a recent trend that has swept restaurant kitchens this year was making charcuterie in-house vs. purchasing it from a specialty purveyor. Many kitchens may not be suited for making charcuterie in-house.
3.Is the adoption of a new trend financially sound for your venue?
At times, a chef or restaurateur may come across a new trend that requires new equipment or even the addition of a staff member to the kitchen who can prepare the specialty. For example, incorporating a new cooking style, such as sous vide, requires a machine called an emersion circulator. The average cost for this machine is over $1,500. Will the profits justify this expense, since customers will not see the cooking technique, probably wouldn't understand it, and may not even care to know about it? (Note: Sous-vide is a slow cooking method developed by Georges Pralus in France in the mid 1970s, using airtight plastic bags)
4. Is your establishment geographically suited to the menu item?
Believe it or not, your location can sometimes be the answer to whether or not you can and should adopt a new trend. For example, lion meat may be popular along the east coast, but may be too unorthodox for customer pallets on the northwest coast. If an item is just too unfamiliar, you may not receive one order for it. Another example would be fois gras. This may be suitable for some parts of the country, but may cause political and moral mayhem in another area. Restaurateurs must be culturally sensitive not to add any item that could potentially be offensive to their clientele.
5. What are the respected chefs doing and what are your guests wanting?
There are many publications and sources of information today at your fingertips that can help you research this question. The NRA is a respected site from which to gather information that is fresh on the scene and they work hard keep a finger on the restaurant pulse of America. Aaron's Brief is another such source and we keep an eye out for what customers are dictating daily.
Although it is important to ask yourself the above challenging questions and seek answers, the main indicator on whether or not a menu item will be a hit is the customer's opinion, acceptance and purchase of the items. A chef's creativity, knowledge of the industry, clientele, and food products are ultimately the skill set that tests and drives new menu item development, however, consumer demand provides the answers to the tests. It is part of the chef's responsibility to foresee emerging trends, identify micro-trends, and readily implement a supply that can meet the demands of the ever-growing sophistication of the world's restaurant clientele.
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