Luxury Travel & Lifestyle Trends

A Food Court boom is upon us, and they’re going upscale, with some of the prestigious names getting in on the act. These initiatives, much like the retail shopping bazaar, help with bring in added income and boosts both room rates and occupancy. We think the appeal of food court dining is that it’s a product of the small plates and grazing trend - trying different foods at one seating – plus, it’s casual.

Are you ready for the next food trend? First it was organic, then local. Now, a new culinary movement is sprouting: urban foraging. As expected, this trend has been hot among foodies in California and New York City for years.

Urban roofscapes continue to be hot real estate and there’s a lot happening in the city skies. First it was rooftop pools and bars (NYC’s Gansevoort, Madrid’s Urban), then rooftop beehives (Fortnum & Mason, Fairmont Royal York) and rooftop pop-up hotels (Hotel Everland at Paris’ Palais de Tokyo museum). So how is the the restaurant industry getting on board?

We used to go to culinary school. Now we want to make the cheese, not just watch the process on TV. Farms schools are the next big thing in foodie vacations, burgeoning from the current farm-to-table trend.

So suggested the New York Times in a recent article “Influence and Spending Power Now Lies with the Middle Class,” referring to the closing of upscale food magazine, Gourmet. It went on to imply that an interest in “food exploration” is dead, and although Gourmet is an iconic brand, it couldn’t make enough profit to stay in business. A business editor at the paper even suggested that everyone would resort to “eating Ketchup, mayonnaise from a jar and Velveeta cheese.”

Affluent consumers want the real thing having been burned by the financial meltdown, coupled by growing concerns about product safety - from toys to mobile phones, even dry wall (note the recent scandal about Chinese made dry wall that is said to cause respiratory ailments and tarnishing of household metals). They are skeptical and want proof.

Like all serious eaters, we all love the idea of the Slow Food movement and what it stands for, namely supporting sustainable, artisanal food.