Fads come and go and taking note of the top trends on your menu can help you stay relevant, get attention, and reach a new audience. This not only means staying in the know about crave-able flavours and sought-after dishes, but incorporating popular buzzwords can help you make the most of your menu.

What are the top terms for 2024 menus?

Mashups

This is the year of the “mashup,” mixing multiple concepts together to create brand-new flavours. One example of this is the “swicy” trend, which is the mingling of sweet and spicy flavours. This one is gaining popularity on menus with everything from chicken wings to beverages.

Condiments are also getting a makeover this year with mashups of their own, including mustard with grapes, ketchup with salal berry, aioli with yuzu, mayonnaise with bottarga, and more. Flavour-mixing is definitely one of the top trends on this year’s menus.

Snacking

“Snackification” is another popular term for 2024, indicating that dayparts are blurring to make all-day snacking a popular trend. Recent studies show that 50 per cent of people are replacing meals with snacks up to four times per week, while 26 per cent “snackify” meals up to seven times per week. With consumers choosing larger snacks in place of meals, this may affect what restaurants choose to put on their menus, choosing to create “mini meals” as an option for these types of guests.

Happy hour

Happy hour has seen a few iterations in recent years, and it continues to evolve this year. With the ever-growing popularity of non-alcoholic beverages, mocktail menus are popping up in many restaurants for happy hours alongside their alcoholic counterparts. Many operators have noticed a new trend, however, with Millennials and Gen Z guests and their drinking habits. About 23 per cent of these consumers are considered “blenders,” meaning that they often order more than one type of drink in a sitting, including both alcoholic and non-alcoholic options in their orders. While this trendy term refers to a dining pattern, rather than a menu item, it’s a good one to keep in mind when getting to know your customers and what they might be looking for from your menu.

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In a world full of online searches, social media, and viral trends, using the right buzzwords can help you stand out, attract a new clientele, grow your online brand, and up those guest cheques.