What can diners expect in Columbus in 2024? Restaurant industry experts share trends
From risotto at a local beer hall to Sweet & Spicy Jam for your Chicken McNuggets, it seems the big trend in dining for 2023 was that food just got better.
“For customers, this is the golden age,” said John Barker, president and CEO of the Ohio Restaurant & Hospitality Alliance. “The bar keeps getting higher.”
What awaits Columbus diners in 2024?
We asked Barker and several trendsetters in the local industry — chef James Tuckey of Service Bar, general manager Sam Harris of Littleton’s Market, beverage consultant Rebecca Monday of Ellis Adams Group and restaurant owner Kathleen Day of Katalina’s — to share their take on the tastes and trends that are coming our way in the new year.
Dining experiences
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Despite lingering economic effects of the pandemic such as higher prices and difficulty filling jobs, more restaurants opened than closed in 2023. That means more competition for your dining dollars.
Barker said that will continue to put one-off dinners, theme nights, chef’s tables and other special events on the calendar during 2024.
Recently, Executive Chef Kris Ludwig of Wolf’s Ridge Brewing created a four-course Midwest Goodbye Dinner for which he put his elevating touches on regional potluck classics such as a cheeseball appetizer and seven-layer salad. Veritas owner Josh Dalton will be traveling to Thailand in January and creating a Thai supper club at his Downtown restaurant come spring. Fyr, at the Columbus Hilton Downtown, plans to continue its visiting chef series.
“They’re curating the ambience of the restaurant as well as the menu,” Barker said.
Plant-based ingredients
Tuckey added an herb-crusted celery root “steak” to his menu recently at Service Bar. Day serves vegan chicken and burgers (and vegetarian sausage) at Katalina’s.
Plant-based entrees will claim space on more restaurant menus, both said, as more people stop eating meat entirely or venture into meat-free dining more regularly.
Monday said plant-based milks, yogurt and cheese — as well as alternative proteins such as algae, pea protein and oat protein — are making their way into beverages and cocktails, too.
Savory twists
We all get that glorious combination of sweet and salty. Sweet and savory, though, is coming next. Harris said we should be on the lookout for ingredients such as peri peri spice and chimichurri sauce flavors in pastries or flavor combinations such as tangerine, chile and olive.
Harris said more complex chiles — the kind that pack flavor as well as heat — are on their way in, too. Look for them in bakery items as well.
According to Monday, savory martinis are growing in popularity, and they’ve evolved beyond a splash of olive brine. She said she recently had a martini made with dashi, a Japanese broth of kelp and shavings of preserved fish. Look for canned fish, caviar and other ingredients both as martini ingredients and bar snacks.
Tuckey said flavors and aromas of lavender, teas and other botanicals are moving past drinks and desserts and into dishes such as risotto.
Exotic mushrooms
We’re moving beyond white button mushrooms of the Kroger variety. Even Kroger is.
Harris said more exotic varieties are being grown regionally and sold fresh locally. Littleton’s Market carries a number of them. Saraga International Grocery, Columbus Asian Market and other specialty stores carry a wide selection, including shiitake, enoki and matsutake.
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Mushrooms such as reishi and lion’s mane also are increasingly being used as ingredients in infusions and tinctures, Monday said.
Natural, sustainable and unprocessed
There are a lot of buzzwords out there to describe the type of cooking that’s coming more firmly into vogue these days, but Day has her own preference: homemade.
“I love that everyone is moving that way,” she said. “Whole, scratch-made food vs. ultra-processed is the way to go.”
Just as we’ve learned to read labels at the grocery stores, we’re getting pickier about the ingredients that go into our food when eating out, too.
Restaurants are looking to local products, regional growers and simpler techniques. They’re pickling their own vegetables and making their own juices.
Foods and how they’re prepared are getting much more transparent.
“Everyone wins,” Tuckey said.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: 2024 Columbus dining trends seen by local experts
