The National Restaurant Association’s “What’s Hot” survey of more than 1,500 professional chefs—members of the American Culinary Federation (ACF)—reveals that local and hyper-local sourcing, healthy children’s meals, sustainable seafood, and gluten-free cuisine will be among the hottest trends on restaurant menus in 2011. In addition, the chefs said that mobile food trucks and pop-up restaurants will be the top operational trend in restaurants next year.
The top 10 menu trends for next year will be:
- locally sourced meats and seafood
- locally grown produce
- sustainability as a culinary theme
- nutritious kids’ dishes
- hyper-local items
- children’s nutrition
- sustainable seafood
- gluten-free/food allergy-conscious items
- back-to-basics cuisine
- farm-branded ingredients.