The Flavor Experience is a premier gathering of food trend experts and chain restaurant menu developers who are hungry for insights into emerging flavor trends. This year’s two-day gathering recently wrapped up in San Diego. Here’s a look at trends that caught my eye that could show up on menus in 2023:

Korean Corn Dogs

Made from either sausage, mozzarella cheese, or a combination of the two, these American corn dog cousins drew long lines for tastings. You will skewer and coat this in a sweet, yeasted flour or rice flour batter instead of cornmeal before rolling in a layer of toppings. Common topping choices include panko breadcrumbs, French fries, cornflakes, and even ramen noodles! It’s a great example of food truck fare heading to mainstream restaurants.

Dalonga Candy

Made from freeze-dried coffee, sugar, and baking soda, this 1970s creation is making a comeback. The creamy beige liquid is poured on a flat surface, pressed flat, and stamped with a patterned mold or poured atop coffee or other hot or cold beverages or desserts.

Jianbing

These Chinese crepes are a popular street food most frequently used as a carrier for breakfast ingredients. The main ingredients of jianbing are a batter of wheat, grain flour, eggs, and sauces, depending on personal preference. Typical Americanized fillings, such as BBQ pork, ham, bacon, cheese, cut-up hot dogs, mustard, pickles, and scallions are folded several times before serving. Jianbing could be a hit in 2023.

Detroit-Style Pizza

With 3 billion pizzas served from restaurants each year, something unique is always welcome. You’ll be hearing even more about Detroit-style pizza in ’23. It’s baked in square steel pans, modeled after the pans once used by Detroit’s famed automobile manufacturers. The toppings are layered in this deep-dish arrangement with the cheese below the sauce. Pepperoni is often placed directly on the crust, and other toppings may go directly on top of the cheese with the cooked sauce as the final layer, applied in dollops or in “racing stripes,” two or three lines of sauce.

Birria Birria/Quesabirria

A famous central Mexican dish, birria is a stew combining roasted meat and adobo-based spices it’s served as a tasty red broth. Originally made with goat, Americanization has turned to beef as the top protein. Top ethnic restaurants are including chopped red onions and fill fresh corn tortillas with spicy flavored birria. A cousin of birria, quesabirria adds cheese atop a birria tortilla with a side for dipping.  

Emotional Flavors

Comfort food flavors got us through the pandemic. Today, emotional flavors are emerging to salve the wounded spirits of Gen Zs and Millennials. Liquid Death, a case study in marketing, set the mold. Tallboy cans of sparkling water from “the alps” that promised to “murder your thirst” took a marketing investment of $3,000 to a company recently valued at $525 million. It launches with three products, Mango Chainsaw, Severed Lime, and Berry It Alive—you get how the brand has connected with its intended audience.

The latest iteration is Coca-Cola’s launch of special edition drinks called “Creations”, including Coca-Cola Byte and Coca-Cola Starlight. With flavors hidden and (mostly) up to public interpretation, the newest curious creation is said to be Dream-flavored. But this begs the question… what exactly do dreams taste like?

Look for restaurants to follow suit with their own flavors for interpretation for mocktails and cocktails, and desserts promising to soothe the soul of customers in search of an “emotion”.

Japanese-Italian Mashups

Restauranters have been fusing ethnic flavors for decades, and the 2023 version is led by Japanese-Italian mash-ups. Why not? Emerging from the pandemic with some of the most popular ethnic (Asian-Italian) cuisines, a typical combination would include Japanese noodles (Ramen, Soba, Yakisoba, and Udon) with a great Italian marinara. Another is a Japanese-style Spaghetti Carbonara. 

Baharat

A Middle Eastern spice blend, look for it to appear as a mention on more and more menus in 2023. The mixture of finely ground spices is used to season meats, and soups, or used as a condiment. Typical ingredients are allspice, black peppercorns, cardamom, cassia bark, coriander, and cumin.

Mediterranean Mezze

It’s the latest version of charcuterie with a Mediterranean bent for a shared appetizer. It primarily resembles a collection of Spanish tapas and other small plates meant to stimulate your appetite. But unlike those appetizers, mezze often makes up an entire meal, combining both cold and hot, vegetarian and meat items. Mezze platters should be loaded up with spreads and lots of vessels to consume them on. Mezze boards are loaded up with radishes, tomatoes, cucumbers, baby carrots, eggplant, and sliced pepper along with cheeses.

Epilogue

The welcome reunion of top chain menu developers at The Flavor Experience (event held by Flavor & The Menu magazine) was the first near-normal event in the post-pandemic culinary world. Yet, chain restaurant executives were obviously still in a struggle to find profitability. One poll conducted during a general session found that most chains felt another 5 years would be needed to return to a real normal.

Thus, the trends we have identified are reflective of dishes that can offer higher profit from simple recipes that can be executed by less-trained kitchen staff. Off-the-wall menu items that grab attention on social media are the hopeful next steps in America’s important restaurant business. If you would like to discuss how your food product can take advantage of today’s trends, let’s talk.