The top food trends for 2022, and where to try them in Scotland

This is what we’ll be eating next year

For better or worse, this year seems to have transformed the food scene. Here are our trend predictions for 2022.

KOREAN FOOD

According to the meal box delivery company, HelloFresh, searches for Korean food were up 5000 per cent when Netflix series Squid Game premiered in 2021. Now there’s a second series in the pipeline, due to be released late 2022, and we’re anticipating a fresh wave of interest. Try Bibimbap Glasgow or the capital’s lovely Kim’s Mini Meals, where you can get the best kimbap, or invest in a jar of Cracking Kimchi from the Edinburgh Fermentarium. Whole Foods are also predicting a rise in the use of popular East Asian ingredient yuzu, which Superico are currently using as a cocktail ingredient.

Bibimbap, Glasgow

FLEXITARIANISM

Both the Waitrose Food and Drink Report 2021 and Whole Foods’ Trend Report have predicted a rise in “plant curious” cooking and eating, or as Whole Foods calls it, reducetarianism. The fact that Scottish butcher, MacDuff, stock Symplicity vegan burgers alongside their Bonnie & Wild beef locker, and there was a rapturous return for Edinburgh stalwart, vegetarian restaurant, Hendersons, whose original branch closed during lockdown, is testament to that.

WINE ON TAP

Plenty of London bars offer wine on tap, but it’s still unusual in Scotland. However, they are doing it in new Italian restaurant Celentano’s in Glasgow, where preventing food waste is a priority. Alternatively, order it by the glass. Tom Berresford, managing director at Bermar, is in hospitality wine preservation, with customers including The Ritz and La Gavroche. He says, “By the glass offers customers greater flexibility, an easier way to discover new producers, and the ability to enjoy different still and sparkling wines during a meal or night out”. They commissioned a study which found that 35 per cent of customers say they prefer to order wine by the glass, versus the 20 per cent who want a bottle.

Celentano's, Glasgow

ADVANCED MIXOLOGY

This has been the year of cocktails, and the trend looks to continue into 2022. Edinburgh now has Cocktail Mafia, Insomnia and The Alchemist, with pressure on bars to produce theatrical drinks that flambé, change colour or smoke. Also, our love of the negroni isn’t going to die anytime soon, with Celentano’s making their own vermouth and Scottish brand Valentian Vermouth on an expansion drive. Waitrose are predicting bottled cocktails are going to be a huge trend next year, though Edinburgh’s Hey Palu and East Lothian’s Buck & Birch were way ahead of the curve.

TIKTOK TRENDS

According to the Waitrose Food and Drink Report 2021, the average user of this social media platform is on it for 41 minutes a day, and it’s been responsible for whipped lemonade and pasta chips, which caused sales of air fryers in John Lewis to rise by 400 per cent last October. The Hebridean Baker, aka Coinneach MacLeod rose to fame on this platform, and released his first book, The Hebridean Baker (Black & White Publishing, £14.99) in 2021. We’re predicting more emergent TikTok stars next year.

The Hebridean Baker cover

BORDERLESS FREESTYLERemember fusion cooking? Waitrose are now calling it by the above name. Indeed, we’re seeing plenty of Japanese and Italian influence in otherwise Scottish restaurants. It’ll become the new norm in 2022.

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