Robotic restaurants and superfoods will not only dominate in 2019. Eating outside the home is a pleasure. At least it was until a few years ago. Today, pleasure is added to the other. And we are not referring to the professionalism of the waiter or to the sympathy of the host, simplicity now of the past.
During 2019 will triumph premises and foods that amaze the taste, but also the view.
It is no coincidence that our choices have influenced the aesthetics, to post on social networks, technology, to amplify the experience, good and healthy dishes. Moreover, to contribute to the safeguarding the planet, plus transparency on the origin of raw materials and the apps that “make X-rays” to the food we want to eat.
These food trends emerge from “Eating out in 2019”, a study conducted by Doxa, an international market research company, with the collaboration of TheFork, the leading platform for restaurant reservations in Europe.
Here they are in detail, in order of importance.
The Social Media Sharing: Instagram and other photo and video sharing apps have changed and will change the world of food, just think of the restaurants – and they are not few – that have created dishes and drinks that maximize the impact on social media.
For example, glitter eduli made their debut in cocktails and pizzas (rainbow glitter pizza or products to insert the glitter in their favorite cocktails) and “injectable flavors” desserts, in which they can directly inject aromas, making the experience more and more shareable.
Of the series: taste counts, but no one in social times can put aesthetics in a corner.
Technological Boom: According to 95% of restaurants in the United States, technology improves restaurant efficiency. It is no coincidence that there is an increase in technological tools designed for catering both in the back-end and in the front-end. Moreover, probably the skill will be in finding the right balance between the efficiency brought by innovation and personal and human touch.
The Robot: It is an example case. This is a “robotic” fresh fish restaurant – inside the Alibaba Hema supermarket in Shanghai.
In The Robot is a combination of conveyor belts, mobile carriages, and robotic arms handle much of the waiters’ legs work, while the software system guide them using QR codes sent by the customer to calculate seats, orders, and payments through the dedicated app.
Extreme Transparency: Where do the raw materials used in the proposed recipes come from, how were they grown, how were they transformed? Consumers want more transparency, so companies have to adapt. There will be more transparency on prices, salaries, and corporate performance and more emphasis will be placed on fair trade, diversity and more attention to environmental impact.
The large catering chains will implement more and more eco-initiatives, while small businesses will look for eco-friendly solutions to fight food waste. New concepts have already emerged from this trend: restaurateurs with their own production (from the farm to the table) or restaurants that create menus with food scraps (an example is InStock in the Netherlands).
Free-from, even extreme: Lactose-free, gluten-free, meat-free, without added sugar and without salt, just to start. The new food regimes will continue to influence restaurateurs who will be urged to introduce entire dedicated menus, not sporadic dishes.
And also the beverage is adapting, in fact, we start talking about vegan wine pairing, a trend that leads to new catering concepts capable of mixing veganism with other types of cuisine, such as in the case of the vegan Korean restaurant, saVeg, in the United States, launched by a YouTube star.
Not just meals, but experiences: in general, millennials prefer to spend money on experience rather than simply good services. This phenomenon will continue in 2019 also by investing in restaurants.
When eating out, people are looking for both a good meal and an immersive dining experience. From here, different formats are born: from the multisensory culinary experience to the permanent pop-up restaurants (permanent spaces that allow the rotation of brands and/or chefs) or even narrative dinners. And then there are cartoon-themed restaurants or TV series as the first official Totoro-themed restaurant that opened its doors in Bangkok.
