Fried egg-flavoured potato chips? Meat crisps? Alternative flours? Aphrodisiac menus in restaurants?
Oh, what fun the culinary year ahead looks set to be, and where would we all be without food writers gazing into their crystal balls and offering their own taste of things to come?
Herewith, a super-objective smorgasbord of infallible predictions for 2025, all scientifically weighed according to this soothsayer’s prejudices, conversations with fellow foodies and a top-secret journalistic tool known as Google.
Wake up and smell the coffee
Cold coffee, in particular, will continue to dominate the beverage scene, appealing to those looking for smooth, energising drinks without bitterness – even at the local pub, according to one fellow culinary crystal-ball gazer.
According to the forecast, cold coffee brews are “cooler than ever”, symbolising a broader trend towards refreshing, flavourful beverages that pair well with evolving palates. And you can certainly see this on the supermarket shelves. Brands such as Havana have rolled out a new “cold brew” packet in its line of generally excellent coffee beans.
Also, while we’re at it, what about the return of coffee as a cooking ingredient? The Ethiopians and Caribbeans have been doing it for centuries, of course, so why shouldn’t coffee-mad New Zealand join the ranks?
World class
Out-of-home cuisines that are expected to enjoy an uptick in 2025 include Turkish, Greek, Argentinian, Portuguese, Swiss and – yumbo! – the food of the American South. Also noted has been the growing popularity of the flavours-less-travelled from Scottish, Welsh and Irish cuisines, the last of which got a rousing thumbs-up in this magazine from this writer on location in the Emerald Isle earlier in the year.
Air fryers
Be honest. Is there anything quite as ineffably dull as conversations about air fryers? And yet, verily, wherever two or three were gathered at a dinner party in 2024, the conversation seemed to turn to these snazzy little things. Even around restaurant plates, too, with heartfelt requests to the hovering wait staff: “Are you able to do this in an air fryer?” Oh yes, they can, and increasingly they will in ‘25.
The year of the ‘shroom
Mushrooms, celebrated for their earthy flavour and health benefits, are predicted to be a key dining player in 2025 menus – whether in pasta dishes, coffee infusions or even desserts. No longer the province of certain sorts of savoury meals alone, the fungi look set for a good year on account of their versatility and perceived wellness benefits. It’s a tantalising prospect at any rate. It’s intriguing. It’s also what this writer predicted in this space last year, so perhaps the odds still remain at 50/50.
Inner-city blues
Let’s face it, restaurants and cafes in most of our urban centres haven’t had a fabulous time over the past 12 months. There has been the seemingly endless road works blocking traffic and keeping heaven knows how many potential customers away. Public service downsizing is obviously putting a dent in disposable consumer cash, ditto a work-from-home culture that has persisted much longer than the pandemic that originally justified it. And let’s not get started on local councils.
As Al Brown told Stuff recently: “It’s a slog.” Thankfully, political leaders finally seem to be waking up to the problem, which everyone in the sector must be hoping bottomed out in 2024 ahead of clinking good times for the year ahead.
According to Innova Marketing Insights, the lie of the culinary land in 2025 will be all about “reinventing tradition in food culture [that] includes honouring authenticity and heritage”. It also includes innovating new food and beverage products from a traditional foundation.
“Both approaches can be expressed through cultural differentiation by country, region or micro-region, as well as cultural fusion. Products, ingredients, recipes, seasonings, and packaging all can support tradition in both classic and new ways.”
If you can translate such triumphant PR gobbledygook into serviceable English, be my guest.
Muddy waters
Dirty soda, a distinctly Utah concoction involving fountain soda, flavoured syrups, cream and fruit juices, seems to be sweeping the United States thanks to the slightly louche-sounding television show, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
Has there ever been a runaway stateside trend that New Zealand has remained immune to? Probably not in this case, one suspects.
The end of peak olive oil
One of the nastiest price spikes in 2024 was for olive oil, which in most cases more than doubled in cost. The change was variously put down to issues to do with climate change (with extreme heat and droughts in Europe) and the international supply chain, as well as inflation. The effect is compounded in New Zealand by the fact this country slaps a 15% consumption tax on staple food items.
Happily, the difficulty seems to be coming to an end. International giants such as Spain’s Deoleo predict prices could halve over the coming year.
Gluten-free year
Overseas, the growing trend of gluten-free restaurants is unmistakable. A friend who has coeliac kids who travelled recently to Europe reports that Italy currently rates as the easiest country to find great GF food and that Rome in particular has many of these dedicated restaurants.
Christchurch already has TGF Bakery, while Crust Me food truck in Hamilton and Auckland specialises in gluten-free pies and croissants. Gluten-free bread is becoming more obvious at supermarkets, too. Lucy’s is in the lead but it’s also a bit pricier, followed by Home St, which makes a damn excellent pita bread.
Would you like fries with that, madam?
Burgers. So many burger restaurants springing up abroad, with the namesake item served in all manner of styles: food on the outside of buns for example, with some garlic sauce. Somebody else serves them with jam. And, of course, plenty of vegan varieties. How could the land of meat exports not be a starter?
Cookbook outlook
Though AI cookbooks may not be hugely in evidence at the moment, British cook and food writer Ravneet Gill is one of many talking about an imminently dystopian future in which publishers who need to produce cookbooks quickly reach for the robots. Rather than paying an author bags of loot to do it, they’ll simply use AI and pay a popular food writer to roll out an endorsement fee. Or so the thinking goes, according to ChatGPT.
Elsewhere in the world of cookbooks, could we finally see the end of one-word titles, replete with cover shots of pouting authors (sorry, Chelsea) bearing their latest tray of goodies?
Also hopefully for the chop: hip-hop cookbooks, X-styled cookbooks (140 characters or less per recipe), books about cooking roadkill, video game cookbooks, and pretty much anything between covers involving Jamie Oliver.
On the other hand …
Nostradamus, who frankly would have been a total downer at a dinner party, also issued a brace of alarming predictions for 2025, including devastating wars in Europe, global apocalypses and the return of ancient plagues.
Should this come to pass, of course, all bets are off for all of our predictions. Mind you, even if the nukes start falling and life as we know it really disappears, some hardened home chef in some fallout shelter will still be banging on about air fryers.
David Cohen is a Wellington journalist, a co-author of Ima Cuisine and editor of The RNZ Cookbook.
