For decades long Ghee is popular in the Indian kitchen, the biological oil is also becoming more popular in the Netherlands now. Ghee Easy is prepared according to the traditional Indian method while using high quality Dutch butter. Large packaging is available now for the hospitality industry. read more
In 2016 the TonTon Club XL is coming back to the ‘Westergasfabriek’ in Amsterdam. For up to two weekends in March you can enjoy pinball games, shooting games, air hockey and many more. read more
Some people may be disgusted by it, but the edible insects are becoming more popular. Currently you only see them as an exciting snack on exclusive parties, but they already are in the supermarket as well. This superfood pasta Bugsolutely consists of 20% cricket flour and also has loads of protein, calcium, iron and vitamins. Besides, cricket flour makes the pasta even tastier. read more
Credits: @dominiqueansel’s Instagram. Guest blog of Leonie van Spronsen, living and working in Paris, heard her colleagues complain about the long queues during the ‘Taste of Paris’ last week. Due to the start of the festival season last weekend with the ‘Taste of Holland’, Leonie blogs about the annoyance of queues. It is not too late to do something about them yet..
Over the past few years they have been popping up all over the world, these “foodie-festivals”we mean, they are either indoor or outdoor, focus on astonishing gastronomy or on variations of our favourite snacks. I personally feel that this is a great development, as the average foodie enjoys these more than a dance festival. But much to our dismay, queueing up has become a regular activity at all these “foodie-festivals”.
Every small but delicious bite you want to try is ruined by a spectacular waiting line. At ‘Taste of Paris’ the average waiting time was 30 to 45 minutes for basically every stand. But also last summer, while visiting ‘Rollende Keukens’we had to conclude that the festival has had its best days, the terrain gets way too busy these days and this takes the fun out of it for us and many others. Obviously these huge crowds are great for the organizers and illustrates the large demand for these types of events, but the negative effect of over-crowdedness will clearly affect your event and the future of your event quickly.
So how come this situation arises on these festivals? The fact that there are long lines at amateur festivals is to be expected, their organizers usually aren’t specialized in the logistics of F&B. Besides, true hospitality is usually not their main goal. But these “foodie-festivals” consists mostly of hospitality entrepreneurs am I right? How is then still possible that these festivals create such un-hospitable situations? Hospitality is their core business!
For the future of the “foodie-festival”it seems to be very important that we solve this ‘queueing up-situation’ because if not.. Will they still be as popular as they are or will people get sick of it soon?
You can either solve this or accept the lines and entertain your guests!
In regards to entertaing your queueing customers, festival entrepreneurs could take some inspiration from baker Dominique Ansel. With two lines a day in front of his bakery (early morning for the cronuts and at 4 PM for the milk cookie-shots) this is the man that can tell you a thing or two about lines and people in lines. He excels in entertaining his waiting customers, like last weekend when he personally handed out roses to ‘his line’ for Valentine’s Day at his bakery in New York City. But on any given day, him and his team hand out warm madeleines, hot chocolate milk, appel cider or lemonade if it’s hot out.
At the opening of his bakery in Japan they even went as far as doing social media challenges between the lines in New York and Tokyo. They arranged for breakdancers to entertain the crowd and when it got really sunny and hot, they sprayed their customers with water sprays to keep them cool.
You can check out our article about the opening of the Tokyo bakery on our website hospitalitytrends.eu.
So consider entertaining your guests while they wait and thus make sure your “foodie-festival” visitor keeps coming back for more. We would love to visit festivals without lines but if that’s too much to ask.. at least keep them entertained!
Sunday the 21st of February ‘’t Soldaatje VOC’ (The Soldier) in Voorhout (the Netherlands) will be opened, located in the middle of the ‘Bollenstreek’. This restaurant serves dishes that are inspired on countries that the Dutch visited as soldiers in the colonial times, from Suriname to Indonesia. read more
It’s getting more popular nowadays to use a digital menu. This was also noted by Vision Multimedia, the company behind Vision Menu. Through crowdfunding they managed to raise enough money to grow both domestically and abroad. But why would you switch to a digital menu? read more
Every year one out of four festival visitors leaves their tent behind on several festival campsites all over the Netherlands. The amount of waste that this creates is bad for the environment. The solution is simple: from now on you can camp in a cardboard. read more
Hospitality entrepreneurs in Belgium and the Netherlands are challenged by Hellmann’s to make ‘The Ultimate Bite’. The winner gets a commercial campaign for his/her own business, to the value of €5.000,=, at The Ultimate Bite live finale on the 23rd of May in the ‘Kookfabriek’ in Amsterdam. You can sign up till the 20th of March 2016 on UltimateBite.com.
Read more about the conditions in the rest of the article. read more
One of the unique characteristics of fries is that you can endlessly combine them with different ingredients. Fries with caviar, Parmesan cheese, truffle mayonnaise, chocolate, Nutella and stews. In the Netherlands, fries are very popular. We eat them with mayonnaise or ketchup but also with ‘mayonnaise, curry sauce and chopped onions’, with hot peanut sauce or sometimes even with truffle mayonnaise but the fries noted below aren’t often on the menu! In response to an article in the Dutch AD newspaper about Tante Nel (aunt Nel), the haute friture shop in Rotterdam, we made a list of unique and weird combinations with fries. ^Bram Kosterink read more
Foodhall 88, the first pop-up food hall in the Netherlands will open the 18th of February in Tilburg. At this moment the lobby of building 88 at the Spoorzone (Railway zone) is still under construction but as from next Thursday you’re supposed to smell fish, meat and vegetables here. Foodhall 88 is open until late April.
In November 2015 we wrote about Dorset’s culinary food plaza. A unique collaboration between AVIA and Willem Dankers. The food plaza has opened recently and we received beautiful pictures of it, special thanks to Marieke Dijkhof. The article about the food plaza is stated below. read more
Great news, still some spots left for you! ‘Brouwerij Troost’ in Amsterdam is giving you the opportunity to brew your own beer. The registration for the second quarter in 2016 is now open. read more
The restaurants of François Geurds always create a lot of rumour around their brand. Now this star chef has launched a CD with tasty music, the CD Flavours & Grooves. As the CD is hidden in the dessert at FG Restaurant and FG Food Labs, you have one more reason to eat there.
With ambitions to double innovation, Taco Bell is sharing exclusive insights into its plan to R.I.N.G. The Bell for winning in the years ahead! The read more
We have been sharing inspiration on our website since 2007, inspiration that we find in the hospitality industry or by online spotting of what our read more
After the unique locations like the ‘Laurenskerk’ in Rotterdam and the ‘Concertgebouw’ in Amsterdam, this year on 6 April the fifth edition of MUST will be celebrated in the Kurhaus Hotel in Scheveningen. The party is in the Kurzaal, with entertainment and DJ’s like Erick E and Funkerman. All of the 252 rooms of the Kurhaus hotel are available for the visitors of MUST. The sale of the hotel package starts on 21 February.
Jiva coffee cubes is a new form of instant coffee with a deep stronger taste. The coffee beans used for the Jiva coffee cubes are from Colombia. The beans are freeze-dried and blended with unrefined cane sugar, known in South America as panela. Panela acts as a bonding agent and the coffee is pressed into cubes and individually hand-wrapped. The Jiva coffee cubes dissolve in hot water or milk and taste strong. At the moment, the coffee cubes are wrapped by hand, the owners are looking for funds to purchase a standard packing machine.
The video above shows how to make music with vegetables and fruit. Through a special technique the electrical signals are converted into keyboard signals. By making music with the vegetables you create more experience during making a salad.
By using the font Ecofont you can save on ink and it is a simple way to anticipate on sustainability. The Ecofont software leaves small holes in the letters and saves printer ink. These holes are never visible on screen and our brains ignore them on paper. The savings on ink costs can be up to 50%. Hospitality businesses can save on ink by using this font for invoices and letters and it promotes environmentally sound behavior within the organization.
Two Parisian patisseries have transformed the classic choux pastry with a new look. With the opening of the two stylish boutiques the éclairs become more popular in France. Every morning the pastry chefs of l’Atelier de l’Éclair make the éclairs fresh and by hand. Besides the famous sweet versions of the éclairs, the two boutiques are also selling savory éclairs. For example goat cheese pesto and chorizo-sun dried tomatoes éclairs. The unexpected savory flavours allow customers to settle in for an entire meal of éclairs.
The company PerfoTec provides the solution for a part of the food that is lost between harvest and consumption (30-50%). PerfoTec has developed a technology to extend the shelf life of fresh fruit and vegetables. By measuring the respiration rate of fruit and vegetables and adjusting the packaging accordingly, the shelf life of fruit and vegetables can be extended significantly. This gives the package the right amount of oxygen. According ‘Duurzaambedrijfsleven.nl‘ PerfoTec belongs to one of the world conquering innovations in the Netherlands.
We always say that local tapas is often received with enthusiasm by the guests, this is also the case at Catering Hanenburg. The company introduced the Frisian tapas 5 years ago and recently opened its cookery school at LOKAAL55. What started with organizing a reception for little budget with local dishes for a Frisian client, resulted in a success. Today the Frisian tapas is still a success. Many ingredients are besides local also sustainable. For example the Frisian cheeses, such as Riperkrite, Terschellinger red cheeses, clove cheese and blue cheese. But also the Frisian dry sausage from various butchers and tapas with shrimps and Frisian crostini are sustainable. On the picture you see smoked eel from the Sneekermeer with sushi rolls of beetroot and cream of potato.
In Canada Budweiser is appealing to hockey fans by offering them their very own ‘red light’. Every time their team scores, the light will go off with a honk. The light is connected via Wi-Fi network. Fun applicable for pubs as well! Maybe an ‘orange light’ for the Dutch soccer fans?
Rachel Howard searched in the heart of London for unusual bars en restaurants. She visited more than 100 locations looking for authentic dishes, magical interiors or eccentric hosts. At the Condé Nast Traveller website she gives a preview and reveals a few of her favorites. Like the secret cinema Wirled Cinema, shown on the picture above. The cinema is intimate and has a small bar where you can order cocktails, pizza and popcorn. The cinema is hidden in an alley and hard to find. Read the whole preview at the website from Condé Nast Traveller.
Hospitality is a subjective matter. What I experience as hospitality can be bothersome for others. However there are hospitable gestures that always score with guests. Especially small gestures can make quite the difference, these are the gestures that guests will remember fondly in years to come and maybe even make them come back. In the article ‘Small gestures in hospitality’ we do give great examples…. Click here to download the bookled for free.
Just great to watch, kids about Valentine’s Day. No trend or anything but we started this morning with a smile.
Have a nice day. Video and image courtesy of YouTube, Small Fry
Today one of the famous fast food item ‘currywurst’ (curry sausage) will be introduced at McDonald’s Germany. After the German specialties Big Rosti and McBrezer, the ‘McCurrywurst’ will be sold in approximately 1.400 locations. The next six weeks visitors can order the ‘McCurrywurst’ in combination with a Kaiserroll or with fries in a menu. McDonald’s Germany hopes that the McCurrywurst will soon become the company’s next classic menu item.
Another example of how to use Social Media. The campaign ‘Holiplay’ by Lego is simple. Simply building something with Lego, combine it with whatever you have in your surroundings and snap a photo. That concept captures the very essence of LEGO – use your imagination and play. Konstellation, the creative digital agency, responsible for the campaign likes to refer to it as ‘Brickmented Reality’. Watch the movie and see how Lego has used Social Media and the effect of it.
The Toasted Sandwich Factory, a living installation about the miracle that precedes the food on your plate. Situated in the middle of Amsterdam (in de Van Gendthallen) where the Toasted Sandwich Factory becomes part of the temporary city of Mediamatic. All the ingredients used in the toasted sandwich are grown or fed in the factory. Within a couple of months grain should be ready to harvest, the pigs ready for slaughter and the cows supply milk for the cheese. Anyone can come and visit or possibly help at the factory. The factory shows the origin and the production process of the toasted sandwich. Currently, the enthusiasts behind the Toasted Sandwich Factory are looking for donations.
Russian studio Arch Group has filled an old building in Moscow with its portable sleeping capsules to create the first Sleepbox hotel, Tverskaya. We already saw CityHub in the Netherlands, Tverskaya is founded the same idea. Each Sleepbox is mobile and can be placed anywhere, provided it can be connected to a power source. As well as beds, the rooms are equipped with LED reading lamps, plus sockets for charging laptops and mobile phones. Storage, toilets and showers are located outside the Sleepbox. Watch more pictures at Dezeen.
Inspiration from the Malaysian kitchen. Use crêpe batter instead of the salted coconut milk recipe of the ‘Roti Jala‘. Fill a mold as shows or a funnel with the batter and make circular movements above the stove. By circling you will create a perforated crêpe, streched over a dish will create a chic effect.
The Italian restaurant Sogno di Vino in America gives some families with children a discount on the bill. When children behave well during dinner, the parents will get a discount of 4 dollar. It is described at the bill as ‘Well behaved kids’.
Inspired by the Asian food court, the students Maaike and Charlotte devised the catering concept WE CANTEEN. This catering concept is for universities, businesses, hospitals or other institutions. There are several stalls where local entrepreneurs can offer their products and tell the story behind it. For each location WE CANTEEN determines which local entrepreneurs can offer their specialties for the relevant public. The offer will be diverse and the local entrepreneur get the opportunity to sell their products. During the Dutch Foodservice Congres 2013 (the 5th of February) WE CANTEEN is awarded ‘Most innovative Out of Home concept 2012/2013’.
The online restaurant reservation provider, OpenTable, has acquired ‘FoodSpotting’, a San Francisco start-up. FoodSpotting is an app and it’s sole mission is to let users showcase their latest restaurant meal, what it looks like and where to get it. OpenTable will intergrate the app into its reservation system. How the integration will look like isn’t clear yet except that the focus will be on visuals.
2021: the ‘FoodSpotting’ app, the Hot Trend of 2010, is no longer available. Check out the article at ChefsTemp about what happened to the app that once promised users they would help them decide “what to eat, not just where”?
A new shot of liquor, the bright green drink G-Shot. Introduced by two young entrepreneurs, Jeffrey van der Meer and Lars Bos from The Netherlands. According to the entrepreneurs: ‘The one and only tingling party shooter’.
Diageo, the owner of the famous whiskey Lagavulin, offers a whiskey fan the opportunity to spend two days at the distillery. Participants can register until 31 March on the website Friends of the Classic Malts. On the subscribers can be voted. The warehouse boss Iain McArthur who plays the leading role in the atmospheric film chooses the lucky one from the top 10 with the most votes. A nice way to put your company in the spotlight and start an application process at the same time.
Flip van Ierschot of Foodwire, has made a movie which shows the energy of the Slow Food fair ‘Terra Madre’ in Turin. It gives a nice overview of the exhibition in almost four minutes.
At the Fiturtech, the International Tourism Trade Fair, in Madrid the new concept ‘ITH Room Xperience’ has been presented. This prototype hotelroom has multi-touch transparant wallscreens which can be controlled via a smartphone or microsoft tablet. The room further has interactive floors and mirrors and a fingerprint payment system. The ultimate guest experience according to the architects, Serrona Brothers. Check out the Xperience is this movie.
The Leading Hotels of the World commemorates its 85th anniversary year along with Hollywood’s Oscars. To celebrate this exciting milestone, they have selected 85 Leading Hotels featured in iconic films over the past decades around the globe. Click here for the Leading Hotels.
Picture this; just before dessert, the waiter dimms the lights and serves a brown pyramid, the chocolate starts to melt slowly and a led lights appears. Sweden-based designer Alexander Lervik created this chocolate lamp with the help of Scandinavian LED specialists SAAS Instruments.
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