10 food and drink trends to look out for in 2024

“People are getting tired of long tasting menus,” says food connoisseur Chan Kwai Sum, adding that these menus have “gained less traction” among his circle of gourmands. Time is an issue, as is price, which is why it is not hard to understand why fine casual concepts are soaring everywhere—especially when they are offshoots of acclaimed chefs or renowned restaurants. Tambi, the Korean-Indian brainchild of chefs Sun Kim of Meta and Mano Thevar of Thevar, has already gained a reputation for being one of the hardest tables to book in Singapore. Fico is yet another wildly popular Italian hotspot opened by chef-owner Mirko Febbrile, the ex-chef de cuisine of Braci. Even two-Michelin-starred Narisawa in Tokyo has opened Bees Cafe & Bar, complete with accessible price points. 

“The burgeoning growth of casual offshoots reflect what consumers are looking for—tasty, unpretentious food,” says Emil Cecil Ess, head chef of Brasserie Astoria, Swedish celebrity chef ’s Björn Frantzén’s fine-casual brasserie. “It brings chefs back to the basics.” 

There will always be a market for fine dining. The difference is that today, diners want more freedom and flexibility to curate their dining experiences—especially as fatigue begins to set in around expensive and protracted degustation and omakase menus. In this vein, fine dining restaurants have taken to offering à la carte menus alongside tasting menus. Lo Quay, Bacatá and Imbue are just some of the restaurants that opened in 2023, all offering both à la carte and tasting menus. Even one-Michelin-starred stalwart Art di Daniele Sperindio did the same last November. 

“Since the pandemic, we noticed that diners are now seeking variety and options,” says Lee Boon Seng, the chef-owner of Imbue. “The customers who order from our à la carte menu are those seeking to unwind over drinks and small bites without the commitment of a degustation menu.” At Imbue, many diners opt to order a couple of snacks from the tasting menu before selecting a few mains. 

Gone are the days of white tablecloths, stuffy service and hushed speaking tones. A hunger for bold, new dining experiences has quickly supplanted hype for traditional fine dining, reshaping almost everything we know about what it means to have a good time. “Vibe dining”, an amalgamation of a restaurant and a nightclub with high-energy music and lighting, has arrived in Singapore with High House, the hottest new restaurant on the level 61 of One Raffles Place, and Wallich Manor, an electric after-dark spot with an extensive food menu to boot. Even fine dining has not escaped with places such as Shoukouwa Shinjidai, which shakes up the traditional kaiseki formula with innovative dishes named after iconic songs including Sweet Child O’Mine and Like a Virgin. 

Throw a stone any day of the week and you will hit a restaurant hosting a four-hands dinner. Collaboration dinners, once prized as a novelty in the dining scene for showcasing the dual ingenuity of two or more chefs, are now happening so much and so fast that it is easy to get cross-eyed. Besides, gourmands today are more interested in exploring the full extent of each chef’s creativity in their own restaurants. 

What, then, will supplant these dinners? According to Germaine Woon, the founder of F&B public relations firm The Foundry, the answer lies in chef takeovers. Take Mandala Masters, Mandala Club’s highly popular residency programme, including its most recent one by chef ThiTid Tassanakajohn, also known as chef Ton, of Bangkok-based Thai fine-dining restaurant, Le Du. At the time of writing, Woon was also planning to bring Malaysian restaurant Eat & Cook to Hong Kong in January—and it already had a waiting list without any official announcement. 

Read more: Le Du, Asia’s Best Restaurant for 2023, is Mandala Masters’ next culinary residency

Sweet and sour is out, and savoury is in. Once reserved for the few with the acquired taste to savour the complex umami profiles in a drink, savoury cocktails have become some of the hottest tipples on the menu, combining everything from tomatoes (Bloody Mary, anyone?) to miso, peppers, and even beef stock. At Singapore bar White Shades, which opened last August, the star of bartender-owner Jiawei Bai’s first menu was the Savi Galloping cocktail, where paprika and lime mixed with a Código Blanco tequila base for a spicy kick, before firing up chips in a smoking chamber for an intense, smoky profile. 

At Sugarhall, the peanut butter mixed with Hendrick’s gin, watermelon, honey and lemon in the Sunset Cooler is immediately reminiscent of satay peanut sauce. Over in Hong Kong, The Savory Project, a bar dedicated to savoury cocktails, uses all sorts of ingredients, such as clams, mustard, pepper-infused vodka and soy sauce, to make drinks that push the boundaries of mixology. Asia has already risen as a dynamic cocktail hub, and it is certain that we will be seeing many more innovative creations in the coming months. 

When it comes to sustainability, nothing is off the table— even more so when it comes to seemingly outlandish creations featuring alternative protein. Surprisingly, the least outlandish development has been the rise of insect protein in upscale restaurants and bars—just look at cocktail bar Fura in Singapore, where owners Christina Rasmussen and Sasha Wijidessa incorporate insect proteins in their menu. 

Singapore is the only place in the world selling lab-grown meat, and Solein, a protein powder said to be “made out of thin air” by oxygen, carbon dioxide and hydrogen, launched in the city last year. With challenges including scale and cost, it remains to be seen whether these technological innovations will meaningfully change the way we dine out in the coming year. But leave it to the top chefs to do something revolutionary with the ingredients they are given. 

Plant-based tasting menus are not a new concept; the scale of its adoption these past few years is. Besides catering to dining habits, going meatless is also one of the easiest ways to bring down carbon footprints—and the trend shows no signs of abating any time soon. 

Two-Michelin-starred Saint Pierre, for instance, formalised its vegetarian tasting menu last year after seeing how many diners—one in eight, to be precise—would request meatless menus. South American fine‑dining restaurant Araya, too, launched its vegetarian menu last December. And in Tokyo, chef Hiroyasu Kawate of two-Michelin-starred Florilège followed the footsteps of New York’s Eleven Madison Park by going completely plant-based. As vegetable-forward gastronomy proves itself on the dining table, we can only expect more in 2024. 

It matters what you drink, not how much. According to the International Wine and Spirit Research’s Drinks Market analysis, while the volume consumption of alcohol is falling, the value of alcohol sales is rising. Consumers stuck in lockdown prioritised top-shelf spirits and wines during the pandemic, and this trend of premiumisation is set to reign over the next few years alongside the parallel trend of moderation. These trends vary by region, age, and spending power, but broadly, consumers are drinking less, but when they are drinking, they are drinking the good stuff. 

Meanwhile, non- and low-alcoholic drinks are having their moment in the spotlight, as consumers increasingly turn away from alcohol in favour of health and wellness. Somersby launched its first non-alcoholic cider last December, and Lion Brewery Co is exploring a non‑alcoholic craft beer to be pushed out in the near future. But this doesn’t mean imbibers are sacrificing quality for health. 

“Just as my vegetarian friends do not find alternative meats an attractive proposal, many of my non-drinker friends are not enticed by the non-alcoholic category,” says drinks and food writer June Lee, pointing out that finding “healthy, clean, and recognisable” products are their main priority. 

Running parallel to the popularity of mindful drinking is the rise of the non-alcoholic beverage pairing in fine-dining restaurants. Often requiring a more labour-intensive execution of fermentation, curing and other techniques to create this alternative to traditional wine pairings, many are now looking towards a restaurant’s non-alcoholic beverage pairing as a mark of its creativity. Chef-owner Kevin Wong of Seroja (which also boasts a Michelin Green Star), for instance, makes use of extra produce and vegetable trimmings to create his non-alcoholic beverages. Teas, juices and ferments define Marguerite’s non-alcoholic pairing menu. 

For Aaron Jacobson, the beverage director and group general manager of restaurant Zén, the non-alcoholic beverage pairing is “by far the most popular single programme we have at the restaurant, and garners the most intense interest from the average guest by a wide margin”. Jacobson, who takes nine to 10 weeks to ideate, experiment, and finalise a beverage programme, adds, “I think it is partially because it is a new thing to see a business like ours devote so much time, energy and creativity to something so esoteric.” 

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