Canada is a notoriously multi-cultural country, and that is certainly reflected in the international cuisines that are on offer from coast to coast.
Online restaurant reservations provider OpenTable has revealed its 2022 list of Canada’s top trending international cuisines.
With Canada’s population growth and cultural diversity, it comes as no surprise that 136 types of international cuisines are represented nationwide on the OpenTable platform.
Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, and Montreal offer the widest range of cuisines, with more than 50 to choose from, with Edmonton and Ottawa close behind at more than 35 different cuisines each.
The OpenTable report, emailed to RestoBiz, defines the trending international cuisines as cuisines that have seen the greatest increase in reservations compared to 2019.
The data found that British, Thai, Mexican, Middle Eastern, and Lebanese are among the highest trending international cuisines since before the pandemic.
The top 10 were as follows:
- British (+89 per cent)
- Thai (+70 per cent)
- Mexican (+57 per cent)
- Middle Eastern (+42 per cent)
- Lebanese (+28 per cent)
- Latin American (+21 per cent)
- Asian (+18 per cent)
- Mediterranean (+16 per cent)
- American (+14 per cent)
- Contemporary Italian (+4 per cent)
When it comes to breaking the data down by regions, OpenTable found that Toronto saw a huge increases in Persian cuisine, which was up 829 per cent compared to pre-pandemic. That was ahead of big increases in contemporary French (+184 per cent) and British (+110 per cent).
On the west coast, Vancouver’s most increasingly popular international cuisine by a long way was Korean (+329 per cent), far ahead of Mediterranean (+96 per cent) and Moroccan (+84 per cent).
Other notable trends were boons in Pacific Rim (+239 per cent) and Mexican (+199 per cent) cuisine in Calgary, French-American food in Ottawa (up 503 per cent), and Japanese (+240 per cent) and Italian (+200 per cent) in Montreal.
“Canada’s cultural diversity is one of the country’s greatest assets, and it’s incredible to see the impact on the already-rich culinary mosaic,” said Matt Davis, Country Director, OpenTable Canada. “Our data tells us that Canadians are embracing the 136 cuisines OpenTable restaurants offer, indicating palates are becoming more adventurous as cuisines become more diverse.”
