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DIC. GEN. 2017
IX
AT PAGE 20
IN THE KITCHEN
The year to come
Specialization, revisiting traditions, the
payback of good professionals who
dominate cooking techniques: these
are the trends of 2017 restauration
By Elena Consonni
What will happen in the restoration
sector in the new year? What will
the winning trends be and what
will disappear? We can’t see into the
future, so we asked different food
experts: chefs, marketing experts,
commercial operators, university
researchers.
According to Carlo Meo, food
marketing expert and director at
Marketing &Trade, specialization
could be a winning trend.
“Specialization has proved successful
in all kinds of food businesses: both
the restaurateur and the customer
like having a clear ideal about what
the serve and eat. Whatever the
specialization, we must bear in mind
that today people don’t simply go out
to eat a meal, but they go out to live
an experience. A restaurateur will
be successful if he carefully thinks
about what he wants to be and if he
builds an offer to please customers
in every detail”.
New trends are born in the big cities
and then they spread to the rest of
Italy. “There is a modern ambitious
province that wants to follow in the
example of the bigger cities and is
eager to experiment. I’m thinking
about Puglia, about the Adriatic
coast, about Veneto. On the other
hand, we see a return to tradition, to
taste and excellence. The evolution
is different: it starts from areas like
Tuscany or Monferrato and is then
copied in the big cities”.
Another return to tradition with a
modern twist, says Meo, is street
food. “This trend is linked to money
matters. Opening a restaurant is
expensive, while starting a street
food activity is cheaper. It is an
entry into the restoration world.
Another parallel trend is the many
gastromarkets copied from the
Spanish historical ones where people
can eat. In Italy, they are sprouting
up everywhere, maybe too many, and
they are saturated because nobody
buys food anymore. People only eat”.
Meo talks also about a structural
trend. “In Italy, there are lots of
new local chains that insist on
small areas. This is an interesting
phenomenon because Italy has
always been divided between small
individual operators and big chains.
Nothing existed in the middle,
whereas today there are these new
realities, with some high-quality
examples”.
UP TO DATE TRADITION
What do chefs think? Danilo Angè,
a member of APCI, can see a return
to a traditional cuisine, where
tradition is revisited, especially in
the techniques. “Even if they’ve been
around for years, not all techniques,
like low temperature for instance,
have been learnt extensively. Good
food businesses, but not the top-
level ones, are doing now what
avantguarde chefs did a long time
ago. Maybe it’s just more curiosity
towards everything which is new”.
Angè invites people not to give too
much importance to passing trends,
like hamburger places.”I’m afraid
that the rate of business openings
and closings, which peaked in 2015
after EXPO, will continue. You can’t