March last year we wrote about a new twist to the cocktail at the Sky Bar, Bangkok’s highest rooftop bar at the Lebua State Tower hotel. Poptails are premium classic cocktails paired with brain-freezing popsicles. It’s kind of maths: Poptail = popsicle + cocktail. This was the first time we spotted the poptail. Tasting Table now published a recipe for Strawberry Sangria Ice Pop Cocktails…. Created by People’s Pops. read more
Credit: Stränd en SträndFränds 
Credit: Stränd en SträndFränds 
Stränd en SträndFränds 
Credit: Stränd en SträndFränds Zwolle (a city in the East of the Netherlands) has gained a temporary city beach: Stränd! Late July the proverbial doors of the beach opened, located near the canal in Zwolle. For five long weekends you can ‘relax, drink, socialize, eat and above all … enjoying the summer in a Zwolsch manner’ as indicated by the initiators on the website. read more
From today on FG restaurant (Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 2 Michelin Stars) will be situated at a new location. François Geurds will serve the best dishes in the restaurant, which is located next to FG Food Labs. We were invited to check this new place out and can only indicate that their future guests will be in for an even greater culinary surprise than at the last location! We wish François and his team the best of luck and a lot of fun at the new location and with their path to the top of gastronomy, the third Michelin Star. read more
Once the red cups were only destined for drunken partiers, but the game leaves the student dormitories and house parties with official tournaments between beer pong enthusiasts and experts. Strandzuid brings the Beer Pong Knock Out to Amsterdam on Saturday, August 13. read more
At Horecatrends we spot a lot of national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write articles about, the smaller trends we use in our column ‘Trends we spotted this week’. This week among others a Floating beer garden in London and a Peruvian model opens a restaurant in New York City. Besides that would you try cockroach milk? Researchers claim it might be the next superfood!
If you like to read the whole article, click the title. Enjoy reading! read more
Gastronaut Ice Cream, the first organic and unmeltable ice cream. Freeze-dried so you can enjoy this premium ice cream anywhere. read more
Would you use a luggage assistant? We know the drill: your plane or train leaves late in the afternoon, so you want to spend the day in the city. Or you arrive very early and don’t want to waste time bringing your suitcase to the hotel. Most probably you do what we always do: pack your bags and leave them with the doorman or reception. That will cost you time in the afternoon: having to return to the hotel to pick up the luggage. Well in Paris, you can ask Gustave to be your luggage assistant! He will pick up your luggage at the hotel, seal it, insure it and secure it in a safe place till he drops it off at the requested rendez-vous point. Ensuring you and your family of more time in the city and no return way to the hotel! Bag-free traveling. The motto of Gustave in Paris: Keep calm and enjoy your day! read more
Snapchat LogoMore than one million Dutch people use Snapchat currently. 56% of the users are between the age of 15 and 19 and 11% are between the age of 20 and 39. Only 2% of the people that are 40+ downloaded Snapchat. This is shown in the ‘Nationale Social Media Onderzoek 2016’, a Dutch research about Social Media. Would you like to attract a younger public for your business like a club, disco or leisure centrum? You should try-out Snapchat! read more
A Picnic behind the ‘Grote Markt’ (the big square) of Nijmegen (the Netherlands). You can order a picnic basket at Bairro Alto. Take your blanket and your receipt and you can go and enjoy the spot already. When your order is ready, your number will show up on a board. Once you picked up your basket, you’re able to enjoy the sun and the food! read more
At Horecatrends we spot a lot of national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write articles about, the smaller trends we use in our column ‘Trends we spotted this week’. This week among others beer glasses that communicate with an app, Otima port who has to be drunk really cold, Black Lime and fermented French fries?
If you like to read the whole article, click the title. Enjoy reading! read more
Launching 1st August, the first Children’s Afternoon Tea at The Langham hotel in London. In partnership with Hamleys, the afternoon tea is part of a series of initiatives aimed at providing families an enjoyable experience within Regent Street’s Grand Hotel. read more
Another way to reduce the amount of sugar in our food! A bitterness blocker that sweetens your food without actually adding sugar or a sugar substitute. A start-up from Colorado blocks the bitter taste from food with the use of a simple fungi. Myco Technology has labelled it’s product ClearTaste. read more
Last weekend Horecatrends was invited to try-out the Stravinsky city hotel in Hengelo before the opening. A hotel where you won’t have to ask the staff for your key or breakfast. read more
Blue Algea Latte by Instagram account @matcha_mylkbar
#Goldenmilk by Instagram account @cukrfree.cz Healthy and trendy: from Australia to the States, from Great Britain to South Africa, the so called “super lattes” are a rising trend. We spotted the super lattes: Golden Milk and the Blue Algea Latte. The last one only on paper. But we drank the Golden Milk a couple of times before we knew it was called the Golden Milk. Both drinks can be added to the healthy and trendy list of lattes. Next to the lattes of almond milk, soy milk or a latte with matcha. A latte with matcha is already at the menu of Starbucks. read more
The Levitating CUP is world’s first zero gravity drinkware that will create an extra ‘WOW’ factor to your cocktails. The gravity defying drinkware will leave your guests in awe. The Levitating Cup is on Kickstarter at this moment. read more
Especially for King’s Day 2024, GiG is launching their hard seltzer ‘GiG Orange Anthem’ with a refreshing orange flavour for the ultimate King’s Day experience. read more
We have been sharing inspiration on our website since 2007, inspiration that we find in the hospitality industry or by online spotting of what our read more
We have been sharing inspiration on our website since 2007, inspiration that we find in the hospitality industry or by online spotting of what our read more
Restaurant ‘Romita Comedor’, located in Mexico City, has a vintage and modern look. The building dates back to early 1900s and the interior is inspired by an old train station. The restaurant has massive windows, large glass ceiling, various elements of wood and tile and there are many plants. The culinary hot spot serves traditionally-inspired Mexican dishes, has an extensive cocktail menu and live entertainment in the evenings. A wonderful stylish vintage interior, for a great dining experience in Mexico.
Love to bake, but want some variation? Use the Rollware, a set of laser cut dough rollers with different patterns. By rolling the Rollware over the (bread) dough, you will simply get an original patterns. The dough rollers are designed and developed by students at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam.
In the spring I spent a few days in Germany, during which we went for drinks with friends and with that we shared a ‘Flammkuchen, originated from the Alsace region (France)’. Actually we thought to get a quiche but the thin crust of the ‘flammkuchen’ tasted much better. In addition, everyone at the table was convinced that this would taste great as lunch or light dinner dish as well. And the crust can be used with al kind of toppings of course.
Alex Klein Casual Dining BV introduces the ‘flammkuchen’ currently in the Netherlands as a new revenue model for catering businesses. Indeed, the margins on this product are very good and the preparation time is one minute and baking takes 3 minutes. A great business model for entrepreneurs and I know from experience that you will do your guests a favor. ^ Marjolein
A combination of two passions: cycling and soup. Jolanda Kok from the Netherlands bought an old carrier cycle, fixed it up into a soup bar named YOUSOUP!. With the carrier cycle of YOUSOUP! Jolanda Kok delivers fresh soups on locations such as markets, festivals and events. But she also delivers to businesses and restaurants in the region of Amersfoort. The soups are made from fresh, organic and local ingredients and contain no artificial additives.
The Mandarin Oriental, Boston Curry Pop-up will be in the hotel’s lobby lounge every day from Sept. 30-Nov. 1, 12 pm until 1:30 pm. They choose for the curry theme to pay homage to the hotel’s Thai roots in Bangkok. The curry pop-up offers a choice of 2 Thai Curry Bowl’s who recipes originate from the Sala Rim Naam Thai restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental in Bangkok. Great to use the original cuisine from the chain as pop-up in a hotel lobby. An originated Dutch hotel would serve ‘stamppot’ (in between stew and hotchpot) in a pop-up lobby restaurant during the winter. At the Sala Rim Naam Thai Restaurant they have an eye for small details, like a rose in a wine cooler or flowers in an ice sculpture. We are wondering if the pop-up restaurant in Boston also implements these details. Only the atmosphere of the terrace of the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok can’t be equalized in Boston.
Giving people a chance to taste the dishes from Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, the hotel chain has introduced the FS Taste Truck. Since 16 September, the food truck drives to eight destinations in three states, from Palo alto, California to Santa Fe, New Mexico. During the tour the nearest Four Seasons Hotel will take over the FS Taste Truck and serves dishes inspired by the city visiting. The food truck will be parked for one week in each location at the Four Seasons Hotel there, hosting a series of events. The FS Taste Truck can be followed via #FSTasteTruck on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Wine brand Barefoot shows that you don’t have to drink cocktails during the summer months exclusively. For the cold winter period, the wine brand has introduced two Winter Warming cocktails; the Choco-tini and Mull-licious. The base for the Choco-tini is the Barefood Merlot, a wine with notes of raspberry, blackberry and chocolate. The Mull-licious is made with Barefood Cabernet Sauvignon with notes of ripe berries and currants. The ideal cocktails for the winter.
A new hostel has opened in Bonn, Germany. ‘The BaseCamp Young Hostel Bonn is located inside a former storage facility, it’s a covered campsite with a hostel feeling. All the ‘rooms’ of the hotel are camping trailers and other retro vehicles. The hostel accommodates 120 beds across 15 caravans, trailers and airstreams. The rates for a night range from €54 up to €76. The hotel is an idea of the German hotelier Michael Schlösser and is in business as from August. The trailers, airstreams and caravans are all classic models that definitely remind many of the holiday experiences of their childhood. The youtube video is a bit long but shows the whole campground.
It pays to work together. In the Netherlands we see more and more restaurant- and hotelowners looking for ways to work together. In April we spotted a pop-up restaurant by two-star chef Edwin Vinke from the south of Holland in Buitenplaats Amerongen. On October the 27th (fully booked) and November 24th SchultnHues&Friends will provide Amsterdam with their Lazy Sunday, a combination of good music and culinary delights. Normally their Lazy Sunday is held in Zutphen where their restaurant is located. Peter Gast of restaurant ‘t Schulten Hues will work with André Gerrits (‘het Amsterdammertje’ in Loenen a/d Vecht / one Michelin star) and DJ Hans Stroeve to provide a swinging and succulent Lazy Sunday Afternoon, in the famous Café Americain on the Leidseplein. For us who live in the West of Holland a fun way to get acquainted with the cooking of Peter Gast without having to drive the 2 hours to Zutphen.
Share your food photos online and share actual food with those children who need it. Feedie, a new free app, aims to channel all the food ínstagrammers’ toward a common goal. After a restaurant guest uploads a photo on Feedie and shares it on his or hers social networks (Google+, Foursquare, Facebook or Twitter), participating restaurants donate money to The Lunchbox Fund, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing a daily meal to extremely poor school children. The app has been launched officially on October 9 at The Lunchbox Fund’s annual gala. Quite some restaurants in New York are participating, including Del Posto, The Spotted Pig and La Esquina. Feedie says on their website that they are already working international.
A real Italian promotional short film, a bit old fashioned, but the product is innovative. The Italian company Hasta La Pizza has introduced ‘pizza on a stick’ on the Anuga fair in Cologne. It is designed for the on-the-go market. Hasta la Pizza is available in the flavors Margherita, ham and salami, in packs of 60 grams. Gerardo Acampora came up with the concept two years ago when he saw two boys on the beach. One ate a slice of pizza, the other an ice cream on a stick. That gave him the idea to combine the two. He went to work and four months later he applied for a patent. You can warm them in a toaster or in the oven and the makers promise that the pizza’s won’t leak tomato sauce and you will not get dirty fingers. Hasta la Pizza offers ‘pizza on a stick’ in license to producers from outside Italy.
This article is only available in Dutch:
Op basis van uitgebreid onderzoek, uitgevoerd door VVV Nederland en Van Spronsen & Partners horeca – advies, is de gastvrijheidsbeleving van ruim 8.000 bezoekers van de 21 grootste steden van ons land voor de vijfde maal in kaart gebracht. Lees verder.
Brugal rum from the Dominican Republic is celebrating their 125th birthday! To celebrate this they have challenged bartenders from the Netherlands to create their own Brugal Dry cocktail recipe and to create a concept for a Brugal Refreshingly Dry Bar. From all entries 10 bartenders were selected from witch the jury will taste their cocktail. Three finalists will continue and decide who makes the best cocktail and came up with a great concept on the 21st of October in hotel Droog (Amsterdam). The winner wins his or her own Refreshingly Dry Bar for a night in hotel Droog. They can invite their friends and Wyane Collins – an internationally renowned and award winning bart trainer – will join as colleague.
Drawing the attention of all passersby, the vegan restaurant Rayen at Lope de Vega street in Madrid creatively redesigned its store entrance facade. The installation is titled (fos), which means “light” in the Greek language, and “melted” in Catalan. The entry of this small eatery invites their passersby to stop and step into the ‘spotlight’. Created by Eleni Karpatsi, Susan Piquer and Julio Calvo, the (fos) trio. The team introduced an unique installation that paints the illusion of an artificial light beam shining from above. Effectively highlighting the restaurant front door for 4 days and nights, was made using yellow tape, pineapples, a lamp, and painted pieces of art and lawn furniture. At the Facebookpage from the (fos) trio, you can find a lot of inspirational pictures.
Late September, our colleagues Lennert Rietveld and Laura Stoter got introduced to the Dutch board game ‘Gastologie’. Jeannine Sok who developed the game together with students from the ‘Cas Spijkers Academy Twente’, played the game with visitors during the event ‘Gastvrij Rotterdam’. Nice to play the game with your staff or to use it to increase the Hospitality level that you want your guest to experience in your business.
Recently our managing director, Hans van Spronsen, wrote a column ‘Generation 0.0’ from witch we quote the following paragraph, ” Maybe the fact that the majority of hotel guests in the middle and upper segment is older than 40 years and is not active on the social media. That’s why I’m always amazed when I see that these hotels have a Facebook page and are very active on Twitter. Who are you trying to reach? Not the target audience, I think. We do not read tweets or likes.” In his column which is published in a Dutch magazine he explains that this generation checks all the reviews at bookings.com or Tripadvisor and that hotelmanagers better check these reviews at a daily base and react to the reviews in a personal way.
Hotel Mitland in Utrecht is responding with the introduction of the hotelBooQi . This communication tool , a folding flyer credit card size , serves as a holder for the room key, contains practical information about staying in the hotel and a map with landmarks. The hotel thinks that despite the attendance of mobile applications, that at this moment in time it is still more effective to inform their guests this way. This in addition to the information on their website and taking into account the 0.0 generation. Besides that the unfolding of the HotelBooQi is still faster than downloading and opening an application.
The boutique hostel King Kong in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, will open in the first quarter of 2014. The 5 meter high loft offers extraordinary sleeping facilities. There are ‘huts’ between the roof beams to hammocks and cozy niches and normal two, four and six person rooms as well. The hostel accommodates a total of 150 beds.
All the bungalows at bungalowpark ‘De Eemhof’ are fully booked from 7 to 9 February 2014. Organizer ‘Meubelstukken’ only needed a week to archieve this, giving previous visitors the first chance to book their bungalow.
Party organization Loveland announced its ‘Loveland weekender’ bungalow festival in September. This festival, located at Roompot bungalowpark Weerterbergen in Limburg from 4 to 6 April was sold-out in only 24 hours.
Unfortunately this article is only available in Dutch.
De Italiaanse restaurants kenden in 2013 de sterkste groei van alle restauranttypen in Nederland. Er kwamen 55 nieuwe Italiaanse restaurants bij. Over een periode van 5 jaar groeide het aantal Italiaanse restaurants met bijna 14%. Ook over een periode van tien jaar zien we een zelfde ontwikkeling met een aanwas van 576 bedrijven. Hierdoor nam het marktaandeel van Italiaanse restaurants de afgelopen tien jaar toe naar in totaal 12% van de totale restaurantmarkt. Deze positieve ontwikkeling wordt mede veroorzaakt door de opkomst van Italiaanse fast casual concepten. Desondanks staat de gemiddelde besteding onder druk. Dit blijkt uit het brancheonderzoek ‘Het Italiaanse restaurant in beeld’ van Van Spronsen & Partners horeca – advies uit Warmond. Bekijk het volledige artikel hier of download het onderzoek
A warning with a wink for all tourists who will be visiting NY in the coming period. This hilarious movie should be mandatory for tourists to prevent sidewalk-clogging, by tourist taking pictures while wearing tracksuits. According to New Yorkers tourists need to learn how to behave. And Johnny T, tells about all the jerky things tourist do in NY and tells the basic tenets of not-obnoxious touristing. At the expense of large restaurant chains (although again with a touch of humor) the creators ‘Glove and Boots’ refer to smaller restaurants to eat. He also recommends that out-of-towners stay in their hotels between the hours of 4 and 6pm, when residents are trying to get home. Just another way to put your city in the picture ;-).
With the publication of “Small gestures in hospitality” we want to provide hospitality entrepreneurs with hospitable gestures that are usable without having to make large investments.
We have examples from the Hotel Mainport in Rotterdam, The Mark Hotel in New York, het Pulitzer hotel in Amsterdam and the Palais Hansen Kempinski in Vienna. Download the free publication here.
We are full of prejudices when it comes to food, this unfortunately affects our kids as well. In their eyes something can instantly be disgusting or weird. At ‘Proefwerk’ children are challenged to do blind tastings and describe the taste of for instance a cucumber or a raisin. Because the children built up confidence during the tastings initiator Fleur Derogee often ends with exciting insect tastings. ‘Proefwerk’ takes place at the Future Food House during the World Food Festival in Rotterdam and starts every half hour on Wednesday from 13.00 – 17.00 o’clock.
In September 2013 the French water brand Badoit did a sequel on the marketing stunt Badoit express of 2012. In cooperation with Chef Thierry Marx** the lucky drivers of the Rue de Rivoli were surprised with a first-class gastronomic performance. The travelers of the street were treated to a 4-course dinner consisting of a ceasar salas, a veal ossobucco, a pastrami pressé and a Paris-brest. Chef Thierry Marx himself walked in the middle of the street collecting views and comments of the drivers. The action promotes Badoit water as the water that best accompanies meals.
Bacardi organizes cocktail parties in a classy art-deco building along the Rue Defacqz in Brussels. These cocktail nights are from 27 September to 19 October and limited to 70 guests only, who are chosen from registrations through a special phone number. The lucky few can prepare themselves for world class bartenders like Roman Falton (Artesian, Londen), Shingo Gokan (Angel’s Share, New York) and Elizaveta “Lizzy” Evdokimova (Delicatessen, Moskou). The concept refers to the exclusive cocktail parties in ‘El Edificio Bacardi’ at the Avenida de Bélgica (Havana) during the beginning of the 20th century.
The Amsterdam Marriott Hotel offers the ‘Future of Meetings’ concept with boxing and bootcamp trainings for companies. During the BodyFit meeting arrangement world champion kickboxing Fouad Tijarti introduces various boxing techniques. The training is a mix of stamina, power, speed and technique practices.
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