So, looking into my crystal ball (or cup of matcha) to predict and note the food trends that are happening these days. Drum roll please…

• The Word of the Year? Value! Diners want a bang for their buck, so restaurants like Chilis, Red Lobster and Applebees are making a comeback. With food prices being up and restaurants getting more expensive, diners are dining out less, but when they go, they want a return on their investment.
• Matcha (a finely ground powder made of Japanese tea leaves) is the ingredient of the year. It’s popping up, not just as a hot beverage, but in cocktails, ice cream, desserts etc… The green powder is healthy and pretty to look at.

• Tik Tok recipes For better or worse, this trend isn’t going away. It’s fast, it’s easy, it’s on your phone. I just had one in my email called Scallion Chicken, where you buy a rotisserie chicken, take it off the bone, put it back in the bag with warm rice, chopped scallions and seasonings. Shake together and serve.
• According to McCormick’s, Currant is the flavor of the year. In Miami, I would argue it’s Guava, used in cookies, cakes, cocktails and as a glaze for flan and donuts. Yum!
• Vegetable of the Year? Cabbage! I love this because cabbage, besides being inexpensive, is so versatile. It can be sautéed, made into kimchi, coleslaw or sliced into fish tacos and salads. I recently took a really easy route and sliced it in quarters, brushed it with olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted it. Delicious!
• Quieter restaurants are trending, for non-divergent and solo diners. Solo dining is now trending as a means of self-care. I love this trend because I hate noisy restaurants, especially when dining with friends you actually want to talk to, or at business meetings. Sound quality is a very important and, often overlooked quality to consider while choosing a restaurant.
• Protein This trend does not seem to be dying (especially with the new Food Pyramid that’s out), with fast food restaurants, like Chipotle and Taco Bell hopping on the bandwagon. All I can say is, poor whole grains. And I don’t need protein in my popcorn!
• Rotisserie Chicken This trend checks two boxes- Value and Protein. While it’s an easy take-home entree from the grocery store, restaurants are also serving rotisserie chicken, to offer their diners value.

• Fiber According to Food and Wine, fiber is one of 2026’s biggest dietary fixations, due to assisting gut health (still very much trending) and people on GLP-1 medication.
• Old Fashioned Foods like grandma would make, such as Sour Dough Bread, saurekraut and pickles. This is also called Nonna-stalgia and it involves moving away from science and into whole food eating.

• Anti-Fake Meat In line with the above trend, fake meat, like Beyond and Impossible burgers are falling out of favor. What’s in instead? Different cuts of steak with lots of flavor, like hanger, flank and tri-tip.
• Textures That mix crunchy and smooth or fluffy and hard. One-note desserts, like a slice of cake, are out. What’s in?

• Dubai Chocolate Bars If I had to pick one food that’s trending, this would be it. It started off as a Tik Tok post (see above trend) in 2023; it’s a chocolate bar filled with pistachios, pistachio cream and shredded filo, so it’s creamy and crunchy. It’s made its way into ice cream, cookies, coffee, crepes, brownies and wine. I even saw a Dubai Chocolate empanada the other day. These bars aren’t cheap, but they are a little bit of luxury in our oh-so-harsh world.

• Desserts sweetened with jam, fruit and honey, instead of white sugar are also trending. So you can have your cake and eat it too, but just not a cake made with sugar, apparently the root of all evil.

Up Next: February