From cocktails to meals, and vice versa: there are no more flavour restrictions.
Gorgonzola, the most beloved blue cheese in the world, is entering Milan’s trendiest bars and clubs. This cheese, both in its sweet and spicy variation, can now be mixed with gin, rum, tequila, whiskey, white vermouth, grapefruit and alchermes.
Also from Milan, truffle cocktails – meaning cocktails made with the hypogeal fungus known for its alleged aphrodisiac properties (white truffle’s most recent price: €13k per kilo). Pairing of the year, next to Amaretto di Saronno and almond.
Plus: foraging, the use of “wild” ingredients in dishes and cocktails, such as bramble leave Kombucha (a type of fermented tea), fermented roots, fermented honey, bark bitter, seaweed salt.
Vice versa, in the USA, flowers have slowly made their way into dishes: chocolate desserts with jasmine ice-cream, and bacon and lavender cheese sandwiches, are just an example of these new trendy flavours.
Trends cannot be controlled, but knowing them is always useful!