The high street has changed massively over even the last few years and this includes the foods we see. Street food ‘pop-ups’ are exciting food concepts creating big flavours, it really is a great time to discover new things. Food choice in our shops has never been better either and we can travel then find ‘that recipe’ on the internet, buy the ingredients and recreate it.
When I was growing up you may have been lucky to have had something Italian, normally lasagne or possibly something from further afield like a frozen curry, and yes it was just called curry. We hadn’t even understood that different food came from the region and not the country. I live in a suburb of a large city and like many of us could eat a different food from a different ‘region’ of any country every night, growing up we had our ‘chippy’ and ‘exotic’ was a lasagne.
It’s fair to say we do in fact live in a small world, we can travel anywhere with ease whether for business or pleasure and try some amazing foods. Most of these foods are ‘street food’, something that is inexpensive but with a big flavour, sure we may need to adapt it a little, but we can now get all these ingredients and make our menus exciting.
Our customers not only want choices, they want a journey, a journey of memories and good quality foods. Can we add the ‘Small World’ feel to our menus? I love lasagne but can I say it’s boring? I want something that will excite, I recently ate in a new restaurant with a Nordic theme, Crispy fermented potatoes opened my eyes to another style or cooking, something we can adapt.
Our menus need to ‘keep moving’ as we do with our own life and travels ever year, some of use like to return to the same place, nothing wrong with that, it’s lasagne. I prefer like most of our customers, to visit new places, new cultures, new foods……. that fermented potato thing!
