Tomorrow's forecast: chefs pick next trends: every day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, millions of customer focus groups are taking place the world over. Every night, America's top chefs are hard at work analyzing a huge amount of data: what was ordered, what was eaten and what was not eaten. Their observations set tomorrow's trends

Prepared Foods, Feb, 2005 by J. Hugh McEvoy

A trendy restaurant lives or dies by the chef's ability to evaluate customer feedback data and use that data correctly. Every party of four is a customer focus group. The results are real world and real time. It is said that nine out of 10 restaurant concepts fail. The ones that succeed are those that best respond to the customer's demands. Prepared Foods has interviewed some of America's premier culinary chefs to find out what these culinary superstars believe the upcoming trends in dining will be.

Small Plates

Voted America's number one restaurant, TRU Restaurant (Chicago) is on the cutting edge of the latest culinary trends, and has stayed there for years. Chef Rick Tramonto has created perhaps the best restaurant in the country.

Chef Tramonto currently is opening a new restaurant, Osteria Via Stato (Chicago), that he believes will keep him and his food on the "chef's edge." Chef Tramonto tells us, "Osteria Via Stato is an Italian restaurant that will focus on fresh and flavorful cuisine, amazing Italian wines and an emphasis on hospitality ... Pairing small plates with a killer wine program is the trend of the future. Chef Suzanne Goin is doing this in a truly exceptional way at her restaurant, A.O.C., in Los Angeles. Her pairings are amazing. What I am trying to accomplish with Osteria Via Stato will be similar--but brought to an even higher level.

"Growing up with my Italian grandmothers, we cooked all the traditional dishes. When first going into the restaurant industry, how ever, I gravitated toward fine dining while working in restaurants all over the world. This pattern culminated in the opening of my progressive French restaurant TRU in Chicago--with Rich Melman and pastry chef Gale Gand. I never lost my passion, though, for the fresh and flavorful Italian cooking that always remained close to my heart. Osteria Via Stato will give me the opportunity now to come full circle with this passion, while still doing what we have successfully done at TRU for the last five years. It is the best of both worlds and I feel truly blessed."

As the driving force and executive chef behind TRU, Chef Tramonto has a long history of winning in the culinary trends business. During the next two years, he foresees continuing the small plates concept and impressing his guests. He is working on a casual home cooking book

"It's all about what you can bring to the table to keep pushing the bar of wowing our guests. There is no limit. We want to continue to expand my vision of great food, great wine and great hospitality in a casual setting.

"When we added the Seasonal Collections (degustations) to the Tru menu--focusing on one particular ingredient through a multi-course menu--this enabled us to work even more closely with farmers' markets, composing an entire 'study' of an individual item through a multitude of preparations and tastes."

Pan-latino Foods

A winner of the James Beard award, Chef Norman Van Aken is known as the original creator of Nuevo Latino cuisine. He also is credited with creating the term (and the technique) known as "fusion" cuisine. His menus blend elements of traditional Old World "haute cuisine" with the brilliant flavors and textures of South America and the Caribbean Islands. Chef Van Aken owns Norman's restaurants in Coral Gables and Orlando, Fla.

He writes, "Happily, America's eating habits and cooking methods have evolved and diversified more in the last 25 years than in the previous 175 years. This has led to great Nuevo Latino restaurants like Patria and Chicama in New York, Pasion in Philadelphia, Topolobamba in Chicago and Ciudad in Los Angeles.

There is an explosion of interest in Latin-Caribbean foods. This trend is not just seen in the tropical areas of Miami or Key West. From coast to coast, from Minneapolis to Massachusetts, "Americanized Mexican" cuisine is evolving into something richer and more complex. Chef Van Aken says, "The reality is that we can expect over 50% of the North American populace to be comprised of people of Latin decent by the year 2050 or earlier."

He believes Brazil is the center of South American cuisine. Descendants of African slaves, indigenous natives and European settlers have blended their cuisines into a wonderful melting pot. Peru is a second hub of culinary diversity. Of course, Chile is known globally for its fine wines and world-class produce. Each of these culinary wellsprings shares a single source of recipe inspiration. Most of the countries of South America are primarily Catholic. All share the same calendar regarding carnivals, feast days and festivals. The street foods created over centuries to help celebrate these "universal" holidays offer a never-ending source of fabulous exotic tastes and techniques. Portuguese, Spanish, German and even Japanese settlers have added their unique cultural favorites to the South American mix.

Chef Van Aken has embraced these amazingly diverse cultures and cuisines. His menu at Norman's reflects his tremendous success in translating South American and Caribbean "carnival" cuisine into the fusion foods he calls Pan-latino. The growing success of the Caribbean-themed fast food chain, Polio Tropical (whose menu is based on Caribbean carnival foods), proves the potential of such items.