McDonald’s in 2016: A restaurant?
Guest blog of Leonie van Spronsen, living and working in Paris, where she experienced the table service at the McDonald’s at the Champs-Élysées. read more
Guest blog of Leonie van Spronsen, living and working in Paris, where she experienced the table service at the McDonald’s at the Champs-Élysées. read more
At the redaction of Horecatrends we spot a lot of national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write articles about, the smaller trends we us in our column ‘Trends we spotted this week’. This week among others ‘Tiny Irish pub on wheels’, ‘Gigantic edible Easter bunny’ and ‘Robots to serve fast food restaurants’. read more
Large groups of guests are often annoyed by this. The owner choses to take the orders through automated devices, which is fine for the efficiency, but should never bother the guests, like the answer: no one brought a ‘device’ with them. Solution: when the staff is busy serving, they are allowed to ask for a moment. Afterwards they should immediately signal a colleague with a device or pass on the order. read more
You find them in every restaurant, in different sizes; the menu. Some restaurant owners are very creative with their menu to turn them into an eye catcher, some restaurant owners don’t really care. What should you pay attention to as a restaurant owner whilst designing your menu? read more
There is a huge project going on in Amsterdam currently. The old KPN headquarters at Amsterdam Sloterdijk is currently being transformed to a place where business, overnight staying and leisure are coming together. Ven Amsterdam is expected to be finished in 2017 and the expectations are high. read more
This March and April the American company Cinnabon is opening three new stores in the Netherlands at Stadshart Amstelveen, Stadshart Zoetermeer and at Utrecht’s Central Station. read more
Viecenta Exclusive Design Tables provides unique garden/patio tables with a fire-barbecue pit in the middle. These tables are unique in Europe and are made by this supplier. Nice for the patio or the terrace of your steak restaurant … read more
Food Truck Festival TREK (hungry) is getting a little sister this summer, Festival DORST (thirsty). And why not? Festival TREK had about 260.000 visitors last year and was a great success. While festival TREK is mainly about food trucks, at little sister DORST it will be all about drinks. Discovering craft beers and good wines! read more
The ‘Healthy Raw Tea’ of Baker&Moore is a healthier alternative of high tea. The high tea consists of several kinds of sandwiches, drinks and sweet treats that are 100% sugar free. read more
The ButlerPad is one of the new innovations in the hotel industry. The app, available for guests who stay at the hotel, has to make sure that your guests have everything they need both inside as outside the hotel. Not only the guests who are profiting from the app, but the ButlerPad is also beneficial for hotels. read more
The Netherlands can add another food truck to its curriculum this Easter. Robert & Wout, real country boys from Eibergen recently made their own food truck, ‘de Melkbus’ (the milk churn). They will sell products made of milk from their own cows. read more
Another restaurant opened in Utrecht (the Netherlands), restaurant Le Jardin is open since December 2015. The restaurant is located next to their own florist and soon they will add a small boutique hotel (four bedrooms), above both shops. read more
At the redaction of hospitalitytrends.eu we spot a lot of national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write articles about and we use the smaller trends in our blog ‘Trends we spotted this week’. This week among others: an afternoon tea with craft beers at ‘The Modern Pantry’ and sip a Dali, Mondrian or Van Gogh painting at the classy cocktail lounge, the Artesian at the Langham in Hong Kong. Click the title to read the whole article. read more
Adhoc, restaurant and hotel real estate brokerage has an unique object for sale: the Sleepboxx, a basic mobile hotel. read more
Hop In The Spa is the first and only spa in Oregon to bring the benefits of beer inspired ingredients, minerals, and proprietary additives into cedar soaking tubs. Benefits of a spa with hop include improving skin tone, reducing stress, and detoxification, all while enjoying a pint of beer. read more
It is so easy to lose track during cooking using text-based recipes. Every time you turn around to cut some meat or add spices you need to search for the next step. Visual recipes are the solution. Visual recipes explain a recipe by images rather than text. You can follow them more easily and it is more enjoyable to look at. You can find more visual recipes at the website of Visually.
The urban farm in Amsterdam-Noord will be a place where you can gather fresh produce and enjoy the green and productive scenery of the countryside in the middle of the city. At the farm products like fresh fruits, vegetables are grown and it will be a place where pigs and chickens are free to roam and graze. A team of 15 enthusiastic students and professionals have started to develop an economically viable business case for the urban farm. Currently, the enthusiasts behind the urban farm are looking for donations.
A bath filled with caramel-coated popcorn, windows and walls clad with macaroons and a meringue carpet. In the London’s Soho the British cane sugar ‘Tate & Lyle Sugars’ created a pop-up cake hotel to promote the new range of gold and brown cane sugar. The cake hotel has eight rooms, each with its own theme and made of a different type of sugar. As the Pirates of the Carribean room, characterized by a huge treasure chest full of edible pearls and coins or the British-inspired golden syrup sugar room with a giant golden lion and tarts in the shape of the British Isles. It took over 2000 hours and more than 600 kilos of sugar to bake the elements for the hotel.
Architect Dean Moran is the winner of the Rethink Hotels competition. He came up with a concept hotel where the focus is not only on the accommodation, but also on the ‘underlying principle of local food’. The hotel, named Allotment Hotel, will include a market where local producers can sell their products. The products, produced within 100 km and grown with sustainable principles, will also be used as part of the dishes the restaurant serves. In the center of the hotel there will also be an open-air courtyard that provides natural light. Dean Moran wants to build the hotel in downtown New York, but there are no concrete plans yet to build the hotel.
The Danish grocery superstore ‘SuperBrugsen’ wants to connect communities and stores with producers in their local area by offering local products as alternatives. Customers can suggest locally-made products or suppliers they would like to see in the nearest store by filling in a form on the website of ‘SuperBrugsen’. After filling out a description on their suggestions and reasons why ‘SuperBrugsen’ should collaborate, managers will taste and test the products to ensure they are up to standard. Kind of crowdsource of suggestions. Restaurant owners can also use this by asking for suggestions from their guests…
From 25 to 27 April 2013 a new event ‘The Lab’ will be launched at the Tobacco Dock in London, organized by the people behind the ‘Taste Festival’ and AEG organisation. This unique event offers three evenings of gastronomic and interactive experiences with some of the world’s best chefs. Experience the cooking techniques from top chef Alex Atala who’s restaurant D.O.M. in Sao Paulo is currently fourth best in the world, or get inspired during the ‘Noma Flavor Test’ by Lars Williams (Noma’s head of research and development). Check the other participants at their website.
Elixr is a new app / social network for iPhone and iPad where users can share their drinks with friends. The new app allows users to take a picture of their drink and post it with a comment and the location. Your friends can view and comment the drinks you share. It’s also possible to see where your friends have checked in and you can rate a drink to help building a grade for the venue you’re at and populates the drink menu for other Elixr Members to see.
The Vodka specialist Puschkin has developed a new flavor, ‘Whipped Cream’. Puschkin combines the power of crystal clear vodka with the sweet taste of homemade whipped cream. The ‘Whipped Cream’ need to be served cold and after drinking a shot you need to consume a little whipped cream to enhance the experience. The drink can also be used for making cocktails. The bottle has a frozen and striking look and will be sold in various stores from April in The Netherlands. ‘Whipped Cream’ responds to the hype from America where dessertflavors make the latest trend in beverage. As for example the ‘Salted karamel Vodka‘.
Earlier we saw that ‘Buitengewoon in het land’ served dinners in the outdoors. This year on June 28, a 5-course dinner of seasonal products will be served on the roof of the building ‘Zuidpark’ in Amsterdam. On the roof of the building there is a 3,000 square meter ‘Urban Farm‘ developed. At the center of this farm, the dinner of ‘Buitengewoon in het land’ will be served. Watch the pictures of last year.
The luxurious villas of Ubud Hanging Gardens are located in the heart of Bali and are a paradise for nature, culture and art seekers. The villas have spectacular views of the surrounding hills and moutains and overlooks the winding Ayung River and the old temple Ubud. The infinity-edge pool stands on two levels, and overlooks the rainforest with monkeys. Besides this large pool each villa has its own horizon-edge pool. Click to see more pictures.
The Michelin-starred chef cook Conrad Gallangher opened a new Bistro named ‘PoshBurger’ in Las Vegas. The menu consists of Gourmet Burgers like the ‘Kobe with truffle aioli, seared foie gras and a quail’s egg or a wild-boar burger with Armagnac aioli and poached pear. You can find the menu here. The meats are all natural, free-range, grass-fed, humanly raised, sustainable and pesticide free. To get an impression of the Bistro, see more pictures at UrbanDaddy.
During the ‘Water4daagse’ guests can order tap water (for a small fee) at a number of restaurants in Zwolle, the Netherlands. During 4 days the revenue will go to the drinking water projects of Join The Pipe in Africa. The campaign runs from 20 till 23 March and is an initiative of the students at the Landstede Institute in Zwolle and part of Upgraden.nl. ‘Upgraders’ are young people who execute positive actions for a better world. The actions contribute to one of the Millennium Goals or human rights.
The toaster ‘The Image Toaster’ surprises you every morning with a random image from Google, toasted on your sandwich. The toaster can be connected to the computer via USB and searches for pictures that are related to a date, such as Easter. The toaster roasts the pictures on the slice of bread. This is still a prototype that has been created for a Creative Technology course “Innovation Lab” at the University by Scott van Haastrecht. But it would be nice a portion of inspiration in the morning or even be fun to serve in a restaurant!
Sometimes it’s difficult to choose a destination when you want to get away for the weekend. Recently the travel site ‘Escape Flight’ launched in the U.K. ‘Escape Flight’ chooses a destination for their clients, they only have to give input as what they are looking for, like culture, food, nightlife or outdoor and sort results based on price, hassle or weather. So ‘Escape Flight’ works by finding locations that provide characteristics and attributes selected by the user, rather than searching directly for a specific deal. ‘Escape Flight is currently only operational for flights that depart from London.
Samsung and LG are set to introduce a smart fridge with touchscreen. The Wi-Fi fridge allows you to make a shopping list, or suggest recipes based on ingredients stored inside. The fridge can be connect with a smartphone, so you can continually add ingredients for a recipe. There is also a Twitter feed and Google calendars. With this system the fridge can reduce the food waste. The system without the connection to Evernote has been introduced in 2011.
“Lamb chop move aside, it’s MY time to shine,” (said Mr Beetroot). This week is the ‘meat free week’ in Australia (18-24 march). During this week Australia needs to think about how much meat they consume, because as a nation they consume way too much. The land-based food sector and also the seafood industry are under pressure. With the meat free week the organisation hopes that people realize that they need to contribute to a brighter future for their environment, animals and farmers by eating less meat and more vegetables. On the website of The Sustainable Table you can download a recipe booklet with meat free recipes.
Easter is in the air! In the coming weeks we will occasionally publish remarkable recipes or action on horecatrends. For example, the trend of the last year ‘chocolate room‘. Do you have a special recipe or does your restaurant or hotel plan a special activity, let us know by mail via tip@spronsen.com. Who knows your company might be on horecatrends.
During Easter, you do not just make the dishes special, but also the drinks you serve. Very simple yet fun, decorate a cocktail with a bunny or a chicken made of marshmallow. You can choose to make your own marshmallow, or just buy them. While the kids search for eggs, the adults can enjoy their Easter Cocktail….
The designer Shu-Chun Hsiao in Taiwan developed a number of birdhouses inspired by the Google Maps icon. Shu-Chun Hsiao creates the Google Birdhouse a merger between the physical and virtual worlds. Today people find their way through technology, the designer wanted to make the birdhouse become the destination as Google Maps does. Actually every hotel or restaurant in the country needs to have a birdhouse like this on the outside.
How often did you get a great service at a restaurant and as only point of irritation had to wait too long for the bill? With the new app ‘Cover’, that will be introduced soon, you can walk out of the restaurant without physically paying the bill. The payment is taken from a credit card stored on the app. Guests do make their reservation through the app and enter the payment information. The ‘Uber’s payment experience at restaurants’ according to Clover. It’s a new way of paying that is in particular useful for restaurants, it saves time and turns tables faster.
The famous Catalan chef cook Ferran Adrià presented an online encyclopedia called ‘La Bullipedia’ at the University of Barcelona. The project is a new revolution in gastronomy and is primarily adressed to chefs and cooking schools. Ferran Adrià expects that ‘La Bullipedia’ will be operational around January 2016.
Together with the Finnish company PowerKiss, McDonald’s is developing special tables to recharge your phone automatically when you put him on the table. By using the QI technology and a wireless power transmission the tables can transfer power to phones and / or headsets. At this moment, McDonald’s is testing the tables in Europe.
Bistro ‘Le Repas’ in Brazil is offering a free salad for any guest who rides his or her bike to the bistro in reward for being green. Sommelier Karen Ferrari was inspired by the number of cyclists she saw on a trip to Paris en introduced this action. The French-themed restaurant hopes that the reward will stimulate visitors to come by bike and also to inspire other companies to do something similar.
Class up your simple brown lunch bag with the waxed canvas lunch bags from ‘Peg and Awl’. The bags have sewn-in spot for handwritten notes to make it more special. Especially the handwritten notes or sayings are great to put even in a a plain brown lunch bag. And if you add a “free” item occasionally, your customers will know this rapidly by either word-of-mouth or through the social media.
Class up your simple brown lunch bag with the waxed canvas lunch bags from ‘Peg and Awl’. The bags have sewn-in spot for handwritten notes to make it more special. Especially the handwritten notes or sayings are great to put even in a a plain brown lunch bag. And if you add a “free” item occasionally, your customers will know this rapidly by either word-of-mouth or through the social media.
Class up your simple brown lunch bag with the waxed canvas lunch bags from ‘Peg and Awl’. The bags have sewn-in spot for handwritten notes to make it more special. Especially the handwritten notes or sayings are great to put even in a a plain brown lunch bag. And if you add a “free” item occasionally, your customers will know this rapidly by either word-of-mouth or through the social media.