What’s on the menu?

Chefs Sean Armstrong of Prime (L) and Geoff Scott from White at the Hilton. Picture / Carolyn Robertson

Nigel Slater, arch cookery writer of the Observer, is dining at one of New York's more fashionable eating places.

He is working through the courses: horseradish pannacotta, sea bass with green tea and enoki mushrooms and his lemon verbena tea arrives with three different flavours of warm marshmallow.

As the restaurant manager recited every last detail of all 16 items on everyone's plate, Slater is thinking, "Hurry up, it's getting cold!"

We are trying to pin down the trends in restaurant dining for the coming year. What can we expect to see on our plates? We decided that the best place to begin was London. Terry Durack, of the Independent predicts casual chic.

"Democratic dining, bringing quality produce, attention to detail and a touch of glamour to the short-order, production-line realms of greasy spoons, delis, cafeterias, takeaways, burger joints and pizza palaces.

"And the next big thing is ... No senor, it is not tapas after all. What we really want to eat is British." Think chops with onion sauce, steak and kidney pud, pot-roasted salt-marsh lamb and Lancashire black beans, dandelion salad with Kentish cobnuts or jellied eel, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

In Sydney and Melbourne the good people who produce the Delicious foodies' magazine like: Stelvin caps on wine (so do we), individual salt-and-pepper grinders on restaurant tables (oh, yay), great regional restaurants (something that New Zealand hasn't done so well, apart from vineyard restaurants); tarts and breads from artisan bakeries (stand up, Rachel Scott); and real farmers' markets (take a bow, all our Asian and Pacific markets, and Matakana).

They don't like: weird-shaped cutlery and big, bowl-shaped plates, poached pears, low-carb diets (or anything else that comes with a book or tins of franchised food), tiny dishes of salt and pepper on the tables that everyone else has had their fingers in, confit of anything, bread dusted in too much flour that goes all over your face and clothes, and restaurants that don't take bookings.

And then we went trolling about to find what was cool in the US.

Big predictions for restaurant menus there this year:

A resurgence of neighbourhood restaurants with character, regional foods, casual fare that is fresh, well-executed and familiar not threatening.

"Small indulgences" like tapas or dim sum or meze, cupcakes and friands.

Carbs and whole grains - breads and "good" carbs, fruits and vegetables - are back in the good graces of dieters. Err ... so we potato and bread freaks were right all along? The queue for Atkins aesthetes and tofu-eaters to apologise begins here.

Up on Ponsonby Rd, Chandelier's head chef Joe Boreham is mulling over his summer menu. "Chefs are bringing you three major influences, both internationally and at home," he believes.

The first is scientific: intelligent chefs creating new methods and rewriting the rules. Froth or cappuccino brings lightness to a heavy sauce, and savoury ice cream tricks the senses.

The second is comfort food and rediscovering classics: "Legendary chefs are opening brasseries and pubs, making pies or striving to make the perfect French fry. The demand for dishes like duck a l'orange, coq au vin and cauliflower cheese cannot be ignored. Cheaper cuts of meat treated with respect, like pig cheek or trotter, are best for some preparations. If the chef is worth his salt, be adventurous."

Then there's produce-driven food, says Boreham. "In New Zealand bulk growing of apples and kiwifruit is making way for boutique farms. Good ingredients give clean flavours and healthier dishes. Fresh figs with New Zealand goat's cheese or fromage blanc is divine. Bittersweet Black Doris plums roasted and served with caramel ice cream is simple yet complex on the palate."

Boreham, as head chef of an elegant restaurant in the inner city, points to a fourth trend. "The other main influence is your lifestyle. When the 7.30-9.30 meal does not fit into your work or social schedule, your dining experience changes. Tonight it's supper after the opera; tomorrow appetisers and nibbles - grazing or sharing around the table will be fun. Next week, a 10-course degustation over wine with business associates."

In essence, says Boreham, "look for intelligent, clean food with respect for its ingredients and origin." 

To the waterfront. Prime chef Sean Armstrong forecasts tapas will be even bigger this year. "Restaurants over the past 12 months have really started to take hold of the tapas concept and developed some great original ideas as well as recreating some classics. I think this [theme] will really assert itself this year."

What will be new on our plates? "Hopefully some new and exciting imported cheeses and mushrooms," he says, adding old favourites such as Dauphinoise potatoes will continue to be on his menu.

Hottest thing: local handcrafted breads.

Over at Soul Bar and Bistro, chef Peter Thornley is getting ready to fly out for a week's hard yakka in San Francisco, one of the world's great foodie towns. His sideways look at 2005:

"French cuisine will influence our plates in small but noticeable ways, though not as much as Italian has done over the last few years.

"Vegetarian food will increase in creativity, variety and quality - and it needs to. Organic-produce consumption will increase, as this seems to be one of the only ways to remember what a piece of fruit or vegetable used to taste like."

Small plates, larger than tapas but not quite as big as an entree, will appear. "Guests will have two to three small plates. Instead of the boring, conditioned entree and main, small plates will carry a raft of flavours allowing you to explore a menu and chef in quick-smart order.

Thornley says the plates themselves will become important because diners will want to recreate the look at home. Stores will sell the complete package (the look) with one-stop shopping - meat, fish, fruit and vegetables, and all manner of tabletop ware.

"You will enter a store, print out your menu, choose the look, pack it all in your shopping basket and head home to your kitchen to recreate it," Thornley predicts. "If you get into trouble, go the website, set the laptop next to the gin by the cooker and have the online chef take you through it."

Menus may carry such descriptions as "dry-farmed potatoes" to mean no irrigation has been used, increasing the flavour. Good suppliers of food, those passionate about its production and care, will be acknowledged on menus.

"Menus will be shorter, more concise, and deliver the food that will meet the guest's expectations."

White's Geoff Scott knows that his menu will have to gratify Americans who have read about White in Conde Nast Traveler, Brits who will be coming for the Rugby World Cup and Aussies who are on their way to the skifields.

So what's hot? Scott's take is: "Better-grown, better-quality meat, more varieties of seafood and shellfish, a wider selection of 'garden cuisine' with great produce featuring as entrees and mains. Food becoming more focused and simple with two or three feature items in a dish, a greater choice of NZ cheeses, fewer carbohydrates, lighter sauces, more ripe fruits for dessert, honest food cooked with integrity, guests made to feel welcome and leave feeling slightly special." 

What's Hot

* Influence of French cuisine

* Dishes such as duck a l'orange, coq au vin and cauliflower cheese

* Tapas

* Imported cheeses

* Imported mushrooms

* Local handcrafted breads

* Froth

* More vegetarian dishes

* Shorter, more concise menus

* Better-quality meats

* More varieties of seafood and shellfish

* Greater choice of local cheeses

* Fewer carbohydrates

* Lighter sauces

* Ripe-fruit desserts

* More brasseries and pubs