Bar à vin Frank’s | An underground bar below brasserie Maison François in London launches this May
12-4-2021
Frank’s, a new subterranean bar à vin from the team behind the critically acclaimed French brasserie Maison François, opens on Monday 17th May. Located in the heart of St James’s, 34 Duke Street, beneath the recently opened brasserie, the bar will serve a carefully chosen list of unconventional wines by the glass alongside a regularly changing menu designed with drinking in mind.
We love the concept of a Bar à Vin! Lots of wines by the glass with simple but great food, great concept for a small diner. There are too few of them! We love to see examples like Frank’s or La Cave Septime in the Netherlands as well.
Reading time: 2 minutes
Limited-edition PAC-MAN pizza box featuring augmented reality game by Pizza Hut
8-4-2021
Pizza Hut served up a ‘Newstalgia’ campaign celebrating what fans know and love about the pizza restaurant, but with a contemporary twist. To bring the campaign to life, the brand unveiled a limited-edition PAC-MAN pizza box featuring an augmented reality game and a chance to win a custom PAC-MAN game cabinet back in March. The campaign did put a contemporary twist on celebrating all the things people love and associate with the brand – from Book It!® pins, classic arcade games, red cups and Tiffany-style lamps and of course, iconic Pizza Hut pizzas.
Although the campaign has already ended we think it might be an inspiration for other restaurants to add some nostalgia to their brand in one way or another. Lots of us loved to play PAC-MAN back in the day but also games like Tetris, Mario Kart and remember SimCity? We have all learned not to play with our food but this might be fun!
Reading time: 2 minutes
Trends we spotted | Week 13
6-4-2021
At horecatrends.com or hospitalitytrends.eu 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 about an investment by restaurant chain Chipotle in autonomous delivery by startup NURO. And to help out in tough times, supermarkets rent storefront windows from restaurants. Launched last week in Amsterdam, Reclame voor Horeca (‘Ads for Hospitality’).
Both NESCAFÉ and the startup, UP TO GOOD, introduced drinks made from upcycled coffee fruit. NESCAFE NATIV and UP TO GOOD cascara. And in London opened Urban Mutts, the first luxury dog hotel! With spa treatments, handcrafted dog beds, reiki etc.
Ultimate Paleo Protein infuses your cup of coffee with quality protein, healthy fat, and heat-stable probiotics. It reminded us a bit of Bulletproof coffee? And the first Cannabis-infused wine from France has been created in the region of Bordeaux.
KRISPY KREME® Giving FREE doughnuts to everyone who shows his or her COVID-19 Vaccination Card and has more ideas to encourage people to get the vaccine! And we spotted a startup with the aim to reduce our sodium intake which is increasing our high blood pressure: Green Salt made of Salicornia!
Click on the title if you like to read the full article. Enjoy reading!
Don’t worry, I will not be taking my dog with me to your hotel looking like this!
2-4-2021
Marjolein van Spronsen blogs about a potential new guest, the dog! Even though hotels are focussing on hygiene and safety first due to Covid-19, your (potential) guests have bought a lot of dogs recently. Under which circumstances are dogs welcome at your hotel? And isn’t a ‘dog wash station’ super helpful? Looking at our Jimmy it certainly is!
The project ’40 chefs for the 40 month cheese’ | By Consorzio Parmigiano Reggiano and JRE-Jeunes Restaurateurs
2-4-2021
Its strong and spicy aroma, its savoury and intense flavour make 40 month Parmigiano Reggiano a product with unmistakeable characteristics, whose demand is increasing on all consumers’ tables. The Consorzio Parmigiano Reggiano and JRE-Jeunes Restaurateurs have chosen to enhance these features with the project ‘40 chefs for the 40 month cheese’ during which forty chefs from thirteen European countries have developed unique and new recipes, which are also close to home, i.e. strongly tied their area of origin.
For foodies: in this article links to some of the 40 recipes! With focus on the Dutch recipes.
reading time: 3 minutes
The future of pizza | The robotic pizza shop Piestro
1-4-2021
An interesting idea: the robotic pizza shop Piestro, an automated artisan pizza vending machine. Piestro launched in the summer of 2020 and drove investor interest for its ability to automate the pizza cooking process to 3 minutes! A standalone pizzeria model that would make artisan quality pies available in public spaces closer to where consumers live –like apartment complex lobbies or offices, universities and malls. With just a press of a button, consumers are able to watch a pizza created in front of their eyes, with fresh ingredients cooked to consistent perfection. Piestro even started a cooperation with Kiwibots to create delivery from a vending machine!
Inspiration for pizzeria’s? It might be an idea to place an automated artisan pizza vending machine outside your pizzeria, an extra source of sales and so convenient during the pandemic!
Reading time: 3 minutes, checking all the links takes longer 
Trends we spotted | Week 12
30-3-2021
At horecatrends.com or hospitalitytrends.eu 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 about a cultured meat manufacturing at the first plant-to-fork facility The Chicken by SuperMeat in Israel. And a bit older article about the plant-based meat market estimated to be worth billions of dollars. We wonder what the influence of cultured meat will be on those sales numbers!
Japan’s airline ANA sold $1.8 million worth of Economy Class inflight meals to Japanese consumers for at-home dining and Shake Shack begins using AirCarbon cutlery and straws from Restore Foodware at select locations.
Smarties is the first sweets-brand to switch to recyclable paper packaging and Starbucks recently committed to their future by setting ambitious goals in order to reduce their carbon footprint, water and waste by at least 50% in 2030.
A link to a great article about the thriving scene of Korean restaurants in New York, with a couple of them with one or two Michelin stars and inspiration for pizzerias: the garlic buttery crust By the Pizza Inn.
Click on the title if you would like to read the full article. Enjoy reading!
10 Ice cream inspiration ideas | Inspiration for a long, hot summer of hospitality
29-3-2021
What’s going to be a trend in ice cream this summer? Throughout the past year we have seen that comfort food was very popular in the take-away and delivery market, Jonnie and Thérèse Boer of the Dutch 3 Michelin stars restaurant De Librije reopened last week with in–room dining (March 19) with a menu of 6 classic dishes from 30 years De Librije. Does that mean that we’re mainly craving the classic ice cream flavours this summer? At Horecatrends, we think that the flavours vanilla, hazelnut, chocolate and strawberry will of course remain favourite. But there is a lot more to choose from… Ice cream maker Rob Kok (IJspaleis Driehuis) came up with a solution for doubting guests in 2016, the ‘ehh ice cream’!
But there are more types of ice cream that are gaining attention, such as the Japanese Mochi ice cream, ice cream made from pickles and so on. We listed a top 10 ice cream inspiration ideas!
Well-known trends on TikTok and how they can inspire your company
26-3-2021
TikTok has gained enormous popularity in the year 2020/2021. Due to the fact that we have been stuck at home the app has been able to grown immensely. The app started off with videos containing mostly dancing and singing, and it has now transformed into a marketing tool. We have written about how you can use TikTok for your company a while back. Now Sammy van der Weijden has looked at fun and inspiring recipes and trends that she has spotted in the last few weeks. Some of them were not intended to be used for marketing purposes, but they have led to an increase in sales either way. Maybe these trends will inspire you to create something similar for your restaurant! Which might cause an increase of visitor of generation Z.
Reading time: 3 minutes and lots of fun links to TikToks
Trends we spotted | Week 11
23-3-2021
At horecatrends.com or hospitalitytrends.eu 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 about amongst others a 3D-printed neighborhood in California which made us wonder when the first 3D-printed holiday park will open! And a vegan egg substitute by EVO Foods in India.
The ‘Zero Human Interaction’ restaurant ‘Brooklyn Dumpling Shop just opened in NYC and recently signed their first franchise agreement, with a video that explains the idea behind their shop. And Takeaway.com and UEFA announced global UEFA EURO 2020 partnership.
Gordon Ramsey will be selling his own Californian wines in his restaurants and an Argentinian winery has conducted a successful experiment with maturing wine under water.
A biodegradable face mask by the Dutch designer Marianne de Groot, once you have worn the mask, you can bury it and watch it sprout into flowers. And the Halal Guys recently launched plant-based Gyro.
Dark Kitchens | What’s next?
23-3-2021
Our colleague Leonie van Spronsen blogs about the phenomenon of ‘Dark Kitchens’. Currently these companies mainly focus on fast food and fast casual meals, but why not deliver high-quality meals from highly commended chefs from a virtual restaurant?
Celebrating Easter with smaller, luxurious treats
23-3-2021
| Two examples, one from the Bun House, a Cantonese-style steamed bun specialist in London and one from Patisserie de Rouw in Vught (the Netherlands). The Bun House will be launching their limited-edition ‘Easter Chick bun’ set to celebrate Easter. Available from the 26th of March to the 4th April, the delicately shaped buns will be available in-store at Bun House’s Chinatown home and for delivery to doorsteps across the country. But we also spotted the Easter chicks, COKIP-19, by the Dutch Patisserie de Rouw. They’re wearing a Covid proof mask! Check out all their images!
Great is that both examples are fairly small treats. As Arthur de Rouw points out in his press release, the new Easter items are somewhat smaller in size, which is in line with a number of trends he spotted in the pastry world and which are partly caused by the corona crisis. According to him, it is the smaller, luxurious indulgences that colours our lives.
Reading time: 2 minutes |
Orbisk waste system | Food waste monitor provides insight into your waste
16-3-2021
Orbisk has developed a fully automated food waste monitor. The waste collection point of F&B-companies will be equipped with scales and a smart camera, which will record exactly what is thrown away and what amount. Based on the collected data, bundled in clear online reports, you can optimize the supply, purchasing process and your menu and thus save up to tens of thousands of euros per year!
Our colleagues from Van Spronsen & Partners Hospitality Consultancy and –Hospitality Administration have been telling their customers for years: data is knowledge! (in Dutch: meten is weten). By keeping track of your turnover on a daily basis, you get “grip” based on data so that you can estimate how much you will approximately turnover on a certain day in a specific period. As this food waste monitor shows this knowledge is also highly effective for reducing food waste! In the past, we have written about a similar product, named Winnow. These systems are very suitable for the larger professional kitchens.
Reading time: 2 minutes
Impact Shakers | First European awards for sustainable and inclusive startups
16-3-2021
Inspired by the doughnut economics model, applications for the very first Impact Shakers Awards, opened on March 1st. All European startups and scaleups with a positive impact on society and the environment may apply. It is the first time that more than 40 impact ecosystem players from all over Europe, including incubators, accelerators, investors and networking organizations are rallying behind the same cause.
The Impact Shakers Awards are inspired by the doughnut economics model, which maps human prosperity according to a social foundation and an ecological ceiling. An international jury will pick winners in twelve categories: Energy, Water, Food, Health, Education, Income & Work, Peace & Justice, Political Voice, Social Equity, Gender Equality, Housing & Networks. Those start-ups and scale-ups who want to enroll: you can till subscribe till the first of May!
Reading time: 3 minutes
Trends we spotted | Week 10
15-3-2021
At horecatrends.com or hospitalitytrends.eu 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 about amongst others automated voices to take orders at a drive-thru and AmazonFresh opens their first checkout-free grocery store outside the USA in London.
The riverside igloos at the terrace of the Coppa Club will return this spring! As the restaurants are opening again at April 12 in the UK, they might be a safe and Instagrammable place to meet in London. And we spotted the ‘Global travel trends report’ by American Express. With trends we can totally relate to!
Stalk & Spade, an entirely meat-free fast casual concept will open just outside of Minneapolis this spring. Let’s see if we will spot this kind of fast casual concepts in Europe in the future. And the Easter mainstay Cadbury teamed up with the Goose Island Beer Company to release a Creme Egg-flavored stout for Easter.
An interesting development: edible holograms created by the Khalifa University, could be used to show that a food item hasn’t been tampered with, or to prove that it isn’t a counterfeit product. And Starbucks is set to release its latest limited-edition coffee blend, to celebrate its 50th-anniversary. Fifty years already!
Click on the title if you like to read the full article. Enjoy reading!
Juicy Marbles | Plant-based Filet Mignon steaks on the market
12-3-2021
Juicy Marbles from Ljubljana, Slovenia makes history with the first marbled steaks made from plants. With a patent pending on the name, Meat-o-matic Reverse Grinder™ 9000. The founders of Juicy Marbles have been able to mimic the muscle texture and marbling of meat by aligning and layering fibers from the bottom up with all-natural ingredients.
Did you see the images of this Filet Mignon? It looks like a real Filet Mignon, we hope it will be available in the supermarkets in the Netherlands soon. We would love to taste it! If it’s really the first plant-based Filet Mignon? We recently also wrote about a plant-based version made of wagyu meat, called ‘Waygu’. This product by the Canadian company Top Tier Foods (TTF) is making a limited debut in the US with hopes of rolling out at 4,000 sushi locations nationwide.
Dark Kitchens in 2021
12-3-2021
Our colleague Marguerita Vogelsang of Van Spronsen & Partners hospitality consultants blogs about Dark Kitchens, she thinks the question is not whether the trend will become big in the Netherlands, but it is more about when this will happen. It is however a different type of entrepreneur who seems to be suitable for this type of concept.
VinaStraws | Cereal straws to exchange your plastic straws
11-3-2021
As of July of this year a new law will prohibit the use of single-use plastic items such as plates, cutlery, straws and cottonbud sticks in Europe. So all restaurant, hotel and bar owners have to check that they don’t use plastic packaging anymore. Over the years we’ve spotted a lot of substitutes, like Stroodles, Wheat straws and many more! Now we spotted another one: Cereal straws. They can be used in cold or warm beverages and after finishing your drink, you can eat the straw. The Cereal Straws are made of rice and tapioca starch, 100% biodegradable.
Limited edition Hemelwater jenever | Worldwide scoop for Hooghoudt: genever created with rainwater
8-3-2021
A first for Hooghoudt: the distillery with its roots in Groningen (The Netherlands) succeeded in producing gin from rainwater. Hooghoudt aims to reduce the use of scarce drinking water, the Hemelwater gin is based on Hooghoudt’s Premium Jonge Graanjenever recipe. By adding a variety of natural flavors such as juniper, iris root, fennels seeds, cardamom, star anise, elderflower and pear, the ultimate soft and pure gin is created. This 700 runs limited edition Dutch gin is very unique as gin has never been made from rainwater before.
In 2016 we spotted the beer made from rainwater at brewery the Prael. The bitter blond beer, comparable to an IPA, was brewed in collaboration with the beer brewery Hemelswater (to be translated as water from heaven). A huge success, Code Blond even got attention outside the Netherlands.
Trends we spotted | Week 9
8-3-2021
At horecatrends.com or hospitalitytrends.eu 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 about amongst others about a Japanese-Style Basque Cheesecake from Basuku, it sounds delicious! And Orbital Assembly plans to start building private Voyager space station with artificial gravity in 2025, the first hotel in space.
A link to an article about the Dutch initiative Share That Kitchen, they want to become a kind of Airbnb for professional kitchens. And ‘Quatreau’ CBD drinks launched in the US, it sounds like a Hard Seltzer drink with CBD and we wonder whether these kind of drinks will come to the Netherlands as well.
PepsiCo is shaking up the cocktail mixer category with the launch of Neon Zebra, a new line of non-alcoholic cocktail mixers in 7.5oz mini-cans. Create 2 cocktails with one can in an instant! And an exceptional payment in the spirits industry, a transaction in Bitcoin between a supplier and distributor.
Onmateria created a Green Box. The Green Box, an amenity kit designed to tackle plastic waste in the hotel industry. And in 2025 the first Nobu Hotel in Germany will open in Hamburg, The Elbtower Hamburg.
Open for 1 month in April 2021: Candytropolis Sugar Rush, a safe, open-air, walk-through family adventure in California. And we loved this ice cream: ‘Not Fried Chicken’ Ice cream! We think it might inspire Dutch ice cream creators to make kroket, bitterbal or frikandel ice cream. Very #Instagrammable!
Instagram trends | #bluerice
4-3-2021
We have written about blue tea before, in 2019, about the tea of Crusio tea. By using the blossom of the Butterfly Pea, the tea will naturally turn blue. The same tea can be used to cook rice, and you will have an Instragram hit #Bluerice! We tried it at home and although it didn’t alter the taste much, it was a bit unnatural colour for rice. We can already see some applications like blue rice porridge, blue rice pudding and of course blue pasta. Some lemon in the tea and you’ll have purple tea or rice and pasta! By the way if you search for #bluerice you will also spot blue sushi, or rainbow sushi! We didn’t check if this is made all naturally.
Click the following links to see some posts about blue rice, including one recipe.
Virginia Gold Peanut Coffee | The world’s first caffeinated coffee alternative made of peanuts
2-3-2021
Virginia Gold Peanut coffee is the world’s first caffeinated coffee alternative made of peanuts. For what we have read it’s the latest coffee craze in the US and we understand it isn’t coffee, but it looks like it and is delicious. Check out the reviews in the press, for example the FoodNetwork Magazine writes: “It tastes like a less acidic version of coffee, with just a hint of nutty flavor”. We here in Europe have to wait though, we only spotted it in the social media and articles in the US. We also understood that they aren’t shipping to Europe yet. We love to try it though, don’t you?
Reading time: 2 minutes
Trends we spotted | Week 8
1-3-2021
At horecatrends.com or hospitalitytrends.eu 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’.
Great images of the food and interior of restaurant Condividere, the informal haute cuisine by Ferran Adrià and London is embracing the power of the pedestrian once again this summer! Westminster City Council have elected to repeat last year’s plan to turn swathes of the capital into outdoor dining and drinking spots.
McDonald’s revealed a global packaging redesign and we spotted a new sustainable, delivery app aiming to revolutionize restaurant takeout packaging, JYBE.
Top Tier Foods (TTF) in Canada is going to roll out a vegan version of wagyu beef, called ‘Waygu’, at 4000 sushi locations. And Nestle plans to produce rice-based KitKat, the KitKat V.
AiFi, an expert in frictionless autonomous shopping, will partner with Wundermart to roll out 20 autonomous convenience stores in the first quarter of 2021.
Mountain Tap Brewery is offering COVID-19 proof dining in gondola’s this winter
26-2-2021
During the first lockdown we had the first restaurant in the Netherland to serve food corona proof in small greenhouses for 2 persons. Which was a great choice as we have a lot of big greenhouses all over the Netherlands. It has been used in several sizes and at different locations in the Netherlands. As are the dining pods which are used as hotel rooms or as small private dining booths during winter time and which are also corona proof. Now we spotted Mountain Tap Brewery, located in the mountain ski resort town of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where winter low temperatures often reach below freezing and snow piles up by the feet. Faced with the likelihood of extremely limited capacity for indoor seating due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mountain Tap Brewery brainstormed a creative use of its spacious patio to accommodate winter guests. In the autumn of 2020, the brewpub transformed several out-of-use gondola cars into private seating booths and installed them on the patio. It might be an idea for all the restaurants located in ski resorts in Europe as well. We have been spotting gondel sauna’s and in 2009 we wrote an article about world’s smallest restaurant the Genussgondel in Fiss, Austria where you could enjoy dinner in a gondola lift. With a maximum four people, you enjoyed a three course dinner with a spectacular view over the Tyrolean mountains. When I started skiing in the seventy’s, the first lifts we used were open ‘bins’ in Italy, those could be used outside by après ski bars to keep social distance! ^Marjolein
Restaurant Basiliek* changes opening hours and interior after reopening
23-2-2021
One Michelin-starred restaurant Basiliek in Harderwijk (The Netherlands) will change its opening hours at the moment they’re allowed to reopen and welcome guests again. The interior of the restaurant will change as well. The COVID-19 pandemic provided the couple who own the place, Tabitha and Rik Jansma, with new insights with some changes as a result. ‘Something that we wanted for a longer period of time’.
We are curious how many restaurants, bar or hotels will apply changes within their concept. We suppose that the popular meal sharing concepts disappear after reopening. Just like COVID-19 is crucial for the open jars of nuts on tables. Restaurant Basiliek will also change the number of guests, which is something every restaurant has to deal with and where the concept is decisive regarding to the revenue of the restaurant. Sadly enough, this is something we have been testing with the ‘6 feet distance’. The decision to apply new closing hours is choosing for more private time, and it is great if your concept can carry this decision. There is no information provided about continuing with delivery and take-out meals in their press release, but we are very curious how concepts will apply this within their operations. Are you changing your concept, let us know!
