The Flyingtable | Creating extra space
30-11-2018
The Flyingtable is one of the nominees of the Horecava Innovation Award 2019 in the category; Concepts, Interior & Design. The table can be attached to every pole, tree or column and can also be removed again without damaging the objects! The nomination confirms that the Flyingtable can be an added value for restaurants, bar, food trucks, hotels and catering establishments.
Getting into the festive spirit with bubbledogs golden hotdogs
28-11-2018
This December, bubbledogs, the gourmet hotdog and Champagne bar in Fitzrovia, London, is getting into the festive spirit with a gold hotdog giveaway, where visitors have the chance to win a bottle of co-founder Sandia Chang’s favourite rosé Champagne on the house. Bubbledogs will be giving away golden hotdogs from the 4thDecember until the 31stDecember. Recipients of each golden hot dog will receive a 375ml bottle of Collin-Guillaume Rosé Champagne.
Casa Velas | Holy Guacamole, time for Guacamania!
22-11-2018
Do you love guacamole? Casa Velas in Mexico, an adults-only boutique hotel in Puerto Vallarta, has been organizing Guacamania, a tribute to the green fruit, twice throughout the year 2018. Guacamania at the hotel means special avocado-focused menus, avocado-themed spa treatments, a dedicated guacamologist and many more! The Guacamania festival took place in March as well as September (in honor of Mexico’s Independence Day). Lots of millennials reading this blog might hope Guacamania returns in 2019! Inspiration for all the hotels which focus on millennials as guests, why doesn’t your restaurant have a guacamologist?
The use of power banks in the hospitality industry
15-11-2018
For restaurant owners it will always be important to continue to respond to the needs of the modern guest. The modern guest with his cell phone, we mean! We have already seen several solutions for this, from actions to enthuse guests to switch off the phone during dinner to offering various possibilities to charge their mobile. This doesn’t always have to go hand in hand with huge investments, an example of restaurant De Dorpskamer in Ermelo (the Netherlands), which offers their guests power banks to charge their mobile phone at the table.
Take-away restaurant Vita Mojo | Food based on your DNA
23-10-2018
A meal that is tailored to your DNA? It might sound like complicated and overly remote but this is changing: ultra-personalized food or eating exactly what your body needs! Vita Mojo in London is the first take-away restaurant that offers these meals. In addition, we spotted several other providers that are working on food based on your DNA, examples of Nestlé and of a DNA company in America that works with Amazon to deliver personalized meals at home.
We would like to taste the meals of Vita Mojo … however, handing over your DNA sample to third parties? Your DNA sample is pretty much the only thing that’s really ‘yours’ nowadays. Would you do it?
Frosted Key Lime shake | When will we see pie shakes in the Netherlands?
23-10-2018
The American fast food chain Chick-Fil-A is currently testing the Frosted Key Lime shake in Austin, Texas. The concept of shakes with cake taste is certainly not new, last summer we already mentioned Polly’s Pies shakes in Los Angeles in one of our articles on horecatrends.com. A pie shake is made by mixing scoops of ice cream with a piece of pie. The drink is then topped with a dash of whipped cream and garnishes as desired. In this case, the dessert Florida Key Lime pie has been an inspiration for the final Frosted Key Lime shake, which must taste like pie, but isn’t a mixture of pie and ice cream.
We still wonder when we will see this kind of shakes in the Netherlands!
Funny ‘small welcoming gesture’ | By Hotel Le Royal in Luxembourg city
22-10-2018
Everyone who follows our website knows that we like to inspire in the field of ‘small welcoming gestures’. Recently we have spotted such a nice and humorous little gesture that might inspire hotels in the Netherlands for our ‘Sinterklaas period’, in the last months of the year. The hotel Le Royal in Luxembourg City has a humorous chocolate coin on the bedside table after the turndown service!
Wellness Hostel 4000 | Luxury wellness hostel in Switzerland
19-10-2018
At the beginning of October, our colleagues from Van Spronsen & Partners hospitality consultancy, published their sector research ‘De hostel in beeld’ (published only in Dutch). This publication shows that the youth hostel image has been stuck to the hostels for years, it’s now changing partly thanks to the newer, contemporary trendy concepts. Nowadays, hostels also profile themselves partly as hotels, with less large dormitories and more private rooms. This ensures a separation in different types of hostels: the classic youth hostel, budget hostels and boutique, design hostels. A nice example of a hostel where it is not just about the overnight stay is the Wellness Hostel 4000 & Aqua Allalin in Saas Fee, Switzerland. And in 2020 a second Wellness hostel will open in Laax, Wellness hostel 3000 & Aua Grava.
Restaurant Ducasse sur Seine | Haute cuisine, hospitality, culture and technology on the Seine
17-10-2018
Restaurant Ducasse sur Seine; haute cuisine, hospitality, culture and technology on an exclusive cruise ship in the Seine. Since 18 September, the ship sails past the highlights of Paris in 90 minutes, while guests can enjoy a 3 to 5-course menu at top level. We already wrote about the upcoming opening in our ‘trends we spotted’ in August, now we know more!
Eaton Workshop in Washington DC | New, social, creative hotel concept
16-10-2018
Eaton Workshop opened last September in downtown Washington DC and besides hotel rooms they offer their guests an interdisciplinary hotel experience. Eaton Workshop consists of distinct parts: House, Hotel, Media, Wellness and Impact. This hub for change makers, entrepreneurs and creatives is at the cutting edge of culture, media, hospitality, welfare and progressive social change. Leonie van Spronsen stayed in the hotel twice and writes about it below.
Eaton Workshop | Opened with a Human Progress Festival
There are many reasons to become an entrepreneur but one reason that is very hip these days; to make the world a better place. This comes in all shapes and sizes but it often it ends up being more commercial than ethic or quite the opposite: very ethic but not profitable at all! These are not the only two options if you ask Katherine Lo, founder of Eaton Hotels, who started her company to prove you can be a profitable and ethic entrepreneur. Katherine and her team opened their first Eaton houses in Hong Kong and Washington DC in September, in special ways. Eaton Washington DC was officially opened with a “Human Progress Festival”, three days of party in the form of spiritual workshops, themed debates, indie radio, more traditional parties and meditation. Check their Facebookpage for videos of their events.
Loved my stay at the Eaton hotel!
Otherwise the hotel is stunning, hip, cool but a typical hotel however you cannot miss the progressive approach to running a hotel. This hotel has 209 rooms and the lobby features an indie radio station studio, at check-in you receive a healing crystal and the staff is of all backgrounds and languages. Lots of attention for details, like for example you will find a list of amenities you can have brought to your room; things like razor kits, shampoo and oh, the declaration of human rights. Yep – this is not your 13 in a dozen type of hotel. At the wellness you can enjoy new age spa treatments and there is a co-working space in the hotel. As for their food & beverage: they have two restaurants, American Son and Kintsugi, both run by their chef Tim Ma. At American Son you’ll find an American melting pot menu, they use a lot of vegetables and local products. In season some vegetables are even harvest from the rooftop garden of the hotel. At the menu of Kintsugi are third wave coffee, Ayurvedic beverages, and experimental healthy pastries, plus comfortable seating areas and countertops to work from, and a selection of periodicals.
Katherine Lo has next to their other hotel in Hong Kong plans for Eaton hotels in Seattle and San Francisco. I truly hope she will pull this off and prove once and for all that it is possible to have an ethical and profitable business, because I think the world could use that! And if anyone can do it, it would be a girl that was surrounded by the knowledge and wealth of the Langham imperium growing up. I have stayed twice at Eatons by now and really enjoyed it! ^Leonie van Spronsen
De Flyingtable op het terras bij Down Under in Nieuwegein.
Sfeerfoto gemaakt bij Down Under in Nieuwegein
