The Menu: My predictions for 2023 — trends, Michelin action and more

More Michelin action again in Munster is amongst the Menu's predictions for the coming year

The Menu takes out his crystal ball to predict the future of the food world for 2023.

This first column of the new year is when Mystic Menu takes out his crystal ball to predict the future of the food world for the year ahead, but he first takes time to smugly congratulate himself for any of his predictions of 12 months ago that hit the mark while blithely sailing over those that fizzled out entirely and came to nought.

However, he almost feels embarrassed to claim credit for the first of his big predictions of last January, when he wrote as follows: “The Menu predicts a big year ahead for Kristin Jensen, Ireland’s most respected cookbook editor, who last year launched a kickstarter campaign to raise capital to start her own food publishing imprint, Blasta Books.”

Mystic Menu was not wrong. Kristin had a very big year indeed in 2022 but her success was so enormous and so comparatively immediate that even Mystic Menu can’t claim to have anticipated she and her publishing imprints would pick up multiple awards, both national and international and very firmly establish both her two publishing imprints, Blasta Books and Nine Bean Rows, as forerunners set to lead the direction of Irish food and cookbook publishing for decades to come.

A jewel in Tipperary’s crown

Another of his predictions was that the long-delayed reopening of the luxurious five-star Cashel Palace Hotel, in Co Tipperary, a project bankrolled by JP Magnier, would be a success and sure enough it was almost immediately accepted into the prestigious global Relais & Chateau Guide, but, then again, The Menu would expect nothing less of an establishment managed by that legend of Irish hospitality, the much-loved Adriaan Bartels, who oversaw the launches of both Sheen Falls and The Cliff House at Ardmore, also ensuring their in-house restaurants earned Michelin Stars.

The drawing room at Cashel Palace Hotel. 

Big tickets for 2023

Speaking of Michelin, Mystic Menu tipped several restaurants for attention from the esteemed guide and, several weeks later, one of those tips, Cush in Ballycotton became one of three new Irish restaurants awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand, along with Éan, in Galway, and Everett’s, in Waterford city, while Sage, Glass Curtain and St Francis Provisions all were added to the guide’s exclusive list of Cork restaurants.

This year, Mystic Menu predicts more Michelin action again in Munster, with the possibility of another star for Dede at the Customs House, in Baltimore, a star at least for Terre, in Castlemartyr, and perhaps another star in any of Waterford, Kerry or Clare, but that’s as far out on a limb as he’ll go for that last prediction.

Mystic Menu also predicts an especially big year ahead for Andy Ferreira’s and Richard Evans’ Paladar cocktail bar and restaurant on Bridge St, in Cork, under the watchful eye of bar manager Oisin Wolfe and pay special attention towards the end of 2023 when national food and beverage awards are announced because this is a ‘stable’ with previous form when it comes to producing champions, not least Cask cocktail bar around the corner on MacCurtain St.

Paladar, Cork. Picture: Miki Barlok

Food trends

As to wider trends in food, The Menu confesses he didn’t anticipate the penchant for caviar in fine dining restaurants and their imitators, the length and breadth of the land but that really became a trope of 2022 dining.

In 2023, he predicts there will be more and similar luxurious grace notes, in particular, a deeper dive into the exquisite pleasures of premium single-origin bean-to-bar chocolate with Shobitha ‘The Chocolate Counsel’ Ramadasan to the fore of the Irish charge, beginning with her upcoming online classes for home consumption.

But in these turbulent times, many will also use food as the tremendous comfort blanket it can be and will embark on a nostalgic embrace of traditional foods of yesteryear, albeit with an elevated twist. Expect hearty stews, braises and casseroles, of both meat and plant-based dishes and simple puddings such as the classic rice pudding and oven-steamed siblings. Neither is it just comfort; very often these traditional dishes and methods were infinitely more sustainable than much of our modern consumption patterns, so such a change will chime with the ongoing pursuit of more sustainable forms of eating. In addition, premium tinned fish will be eaten more and more as a gourmet dish rather than being viewed as a student staple for no-frills cooking. Check out Galway fishmonger Stephane Griesbach’s www.tinnedfish.com and exquisite Irish brand based in Portugal, Azouro, who also do a gorgeous range of olive oil (www.azouro.com).

From that point of view, the rise in plant-based eating will continue apace. While the percentage of vegans amongst the overall populace will remain comparatively small, still in the single digits, the number of flexitarians, those carnivores who drastically reduce their consumption in favour of plant-based or even vegetarian dishes will continue to rapidly escalate. This is no longer a trend but the early days of what is set to become a profound and permanent alteration to the way we produce and consume food.

Support Irish hospitality

It has been a bruising few years for Irish hospitality and, sadly, Mystic Menu believes there will be casualties in the coming year. The burden of sustaining businesses while under such gruelling financial circumstances along with all the other challenges around staffing, rising produce and energy costs and the general cost of living crisis will simply be too much for over-extended businesses that will have to fold. But anyone in hospitality knows that it is a betimes cruel and merciless game which is why it takes a certain mindset to embrace what is often such a thankless career, but it is that same, sheer bloodymindedness that provides The Menu with more than a modicum of comfort for he knows in his heart of hearts that even though some may fall, the industry as a whole will innovate and reinvent itself to any new ground rules and survive in the long run. In the meantime, he encourages all to do as much as possible to support those still standing, during what are usually the most difficult, fallow first months of the year, and to ‘invest’ in meals, buying vouchers to be redeemed later in the year, when the hairshirt of January and February has been cast aside and we set about partying like it’s 2023! Happy New Year!