Croissant craze | What does 2024 bring?

25-1-2024

Marjolein van Spronsen blogs about the croissant hype with for example broissants, cube- and round croissants, croffles, crospresso’s, cragels, tracos, cronuts and Christmas croissants. read more

Is your restaurant or hotel offering a ‘Black Friday’ deal?

21-11-2023

Is your mailbox also filled with a flood of ‘Black Friday’ deals? Your social media feeds and the internet probably as well. However, there are very few ‘Black Friday’ deals from restaurants and hotels among them. Too bad! We have searched for some examples of how, as marketing for  restaurants and hotels, you and your guests can benefit from real ‘Black Friday’ deals.

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Trends we spotted | Week 32

11-8-2023

At horecatrends.com we spot many national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write about, the other trends we use in our weekly column ‘Trends we spotted this week’.

With this week links to articles including a couple of them on reservation fees at restaurants in the hope that this will reduce the number of no-shows. In New York, more and more restaurants are turning to this system. Leonie van Spronsen recently wrote a blog about this subject. It’s kind of a double standard that lots of guests don’t want to pay a restaurant fee while we pay, without any problem, in advance for tickets to Taylor Swift.

A unique combination; a Latin-American fine-dining experience on a London train, the Supperclub.Tube. Also in London: the Vagabond’s Wine Bars where you can choose from as many as 140 varieties of wines!

Aperol sorbet floating in prosecco, sounds delicious! It’s served at Il Terrazzo in department store Nordstrom in NYC. The sorbet is made by il Laboratorio del Gelato. And also in NYC –  the hottest new sushi bar is hidden in The Vault of Saks Fifth Avenue. Great idea, an omakase inside a small corner of a retail outlet?

A touring mini club, Fandangoe Discoteca invites people to dance out their grief! Created by artist Annie Frost Nicholson and it will come to the Netherlands as well. And International Hotel Capital Partners is the new owner of Hilton Garden Inn Leiden Hotel.  

Located 4.5 hours from NYC, in Watkins Glen, is the world’s smallest diner, which is also appropriately named ‘World’s Smallest Diner’. And we read about an Instant Noodle Factory in Queens, they serve 88 different instant noodles options with 30 different toppings.

The popular experience, Dining in the Dark, is returning to Amsterdam on August 31, this time it takes place at the NOMAD aan het IJ. And we love the design of the Costa Rican Suitree Experience Hotel with treehouse style rooms.

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Proeftuin Noordwijk | Restaurants in Noordwijk serve dishes of the future

30-1-2023

Recently nine restaurants in Noordwijk started serving dishes of the future. The chefs in Noordwijk are inspired by local and sustainably grown seasonal products, recognisable on the menu by the stamp of ‘De Tuin van Holland – Proeftuin Noordwijk’ (the garden of Holland – trial garden Noordwijk).

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Trends we spotted | Week 43

28-10-2022

At horecatrends.com we spot many national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write about, the other trends we use in our weekly column ‘Trends we spotted this week’.

With this week links to article about amongst other Toca Social, this is a great place to watch the World Cup in London and you can even kick a ball yourself! In Paris you have a lot of ‘Bars à’ and even a ‘Bar à Couscous’, it’s called Bladi and you can create your own bowl filled with Couscous.

From 1 hotel to 115 hotels in 25 years… That’s worth a party. Fletcher Hotels did it and celebrates 25 years of experience in hospitality with…

Our favorite baker from New York Dominique Ansel opened ‘Dominique Ansel Las Vegas’ at the Caesars Palace.

Do you know where the Trafalgar square Christmas Tree comes from? We didn’t but it’s an annual gift from Norway since 1947. Also in London: The Warmer Room will open, it’s a grand return of the London Nightclub inside a toilet. Dancing with 80 others in a toilet, created by The Warmer People.

Our hometown Leiden gets a rooftop bar at a famous building in the middle of the city, Zirkus restaurant, rooftop bar & ‘spielplatz’. And a sneaker collab: BOBBY’S Gin X KangaROOS, cocktail culture in your shoe closet.

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Spooktacular | Are you ready for Halloween?

11-10-2022

Here in the Netherlands, we need to put our coats back on and it’s getting dark early. In short Autumn has really started after a beautiful summer. We have been able to enjoy many drinks on the terrace this year, as can be found in our lists of popular summer drinks and craft liquor drinks from the Netherlands. Now it’s time for autumn, forest walks, hot chocolate, games and Halloween. Even here in the Netherlands, this holiday is being celebrated more and more often. We have a list of spooktacular cocktails, donuts, Chucky beer, food, Halloween cups and events, even a Halloween Bingo!

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‘The Garden of Holland’ builds local healthy food chain

4-10-2022

A healthy kitchen for everyone, that is the dream of the Green Circle ‘De Tuin van Holland’ or translated ‘The Garden of Holland’. On 29 September, 17 leading chain parties ratified their cooperation by signing a covenant. Together, chefs, farmers and doctors are developing guidelines for tasty, healthy cuisine, strongly linked to the land, inspired by the culinary history.

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Which summer drinks are popular on the terrace?

26-7-2022

Don’t you enjoy the outdoors again, being able to meet friends on a terrace? We do and we are curious which drinks are popular this year besides the standard white wine, rosé, white beer, special beer and non-alcoholic beer. The popularity of the Aperol Spritz remains undiminished, but we are seeing more and more versions of the Spritz and the non-alcoholic drinks are especially popular during the day! We have also spotted special glasses for drinks, a trend for 2022 as a colleague called it, but whether you can talk about it as a trend? During my time as a stewardess, I was given a small Buddha statue in which a plastic glass with a cocktail was placed at a Japanese Steakhouse, you could keep the Buddha. These Buddha’s were so popular with friends that I regularly enjoyed a cocktail there. And that was really a long time ago… ^Marjolein

A list of summer drinks that are now popular on the terrace and alternatives:

4 minutes read

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#GoLocal | Artisanal spirits from the Netherlands

14-6-2022

In recent years, we have spotted a lot of new artisanal spirits in the Netherlands. We have written about the Jongens van Oud West (the Boys of Oud West) who produce Orancello, orange-based Limoncello, and about Voerman Vieux, whose vieux is served straight up with ice cubes or used in cocktails. And about Pink Willem, the first Dutch rosé vermouth based on rhubarb, raspberry and matching botanicals and about the canned cocktails by Amsterdam-based brand Kever Jenever. We also wrote about the sustainable limited edition Hemelwater jenever by Hooghoudt: the distillery from Groningen succeeded in producing jenever from rainwater in 2021.

Below a list of more artisanal drinks!

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All the food festival inspiration you need

17-5-2022

The sun is shining and the Netherlands is enjoying the outdoors! There are plenty of festivals where we can go again! We love to visit a food festival, don’t you? We’ve seen some nice small scale festivals like last weekend FestiValk and the ‘Shit hot Fest’ in April, below a list of small, fun and tasty food festivals in the Netherlands and some nice international concepts, maybe inspiration for the Dutch hospitality industry and festival organizers! We found among others the Fête du Champagne et Vins, an oyster festival, a tapas festival, Singelpark dinner and an espresso martini festival..

You can organize a small scale festival within your own company or companies or build a ‘festival’ with fellow hospitality entrepreneurs, what’s stopping you as long as there are no festivals happening in your area? In this article some inspiration!  

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