In this edition we look at the BBQ trends for 2015
Wood-burning grills invade high-end restaurants: It used to be that grill restaurants were destinations in their own right. Now high end Spanish, Italian, and even French restaurants are installing wood-burning grills to cook dishes that once were sautéed or baked in the oven. The new Cadet in Santa Monica grills lemons to accompany ember-roasted cod and heritage pork chops. King + Duke in Atlanta and Miller’s Guild in Seattle built their menus—and kitchens—around high-end wood-burning grills from Grillworks.
Wood-burning Grillworks grill at Cadet
’Que goes green: Used to be that no one questioned the provenance of the brisket or pork butt. At the New Wave barbecue joints, where the meat comes from matters as much as how it was smoked. The new Barrel Ashes in Los Angeles serves Mary’s free-range chicken. Hometown Bar-B-Que in Brooklyn smokes Cheshire pork from Heritage Farms. More and more of us—even diehard barbecue buffs—are embracing the Michael Pollan ethic: We want to eat meat from animals raised humanely—preferably by local famers—and without growth hormones and antibiotics.
Beef ribs are the new spareribs: The beef plate rib (each weighs in excess of 1 pound) has become the it barbecue at smoke palaces across the U.S. Think meatiness of brisket and gnaw-ability of spare ribs.
Monster beef rib at Pecan Lodge
Tailgating comes home: As Americans started to grill weeknights, not just on special occasions and as we came to own multiple grills and smokers, our backyards became outdoor kitchens and dining rooms (make that full-on entertainment centres). The experts call it “home-gating”—the same friendly competitive spirit, the same elaborate meals as tailgating—but with the convenience (and better tableware) of entertaining at home.
Smoke, smoke, and more smoke: 2015 will bring more smoking and more smoke flavour in foods you’d expect (brisket, ribs, pork shoulder) and foods you don’t (like cocktails, soups, eggs, and salads). We’ll be buying more smokers and smoking accessories, like the Smoke Daddy (a charcoal-fired smoke generator) and Smokenator (turns a kettle grill into a smoker). And turning to high-tech devices, like the Smoking Gun, to smoke everything from cocktails to coleslaw to cheesecake.
Wood, wood, and more wood: In the coming year, we’ll be using wood more than ever before. Wood for grilling in wood-burning grills . Wine barrel staves and olive wood chunks for enhancing charcoal and gas grill sessions. Single varietal woods for smoking—like maple and cherry. Smoking wood blends, like my Best of Barbecue pork blend (hickory and apple) and beef blend (mesquite and oak).
Barbecue goes high-tech: Few of us could manage daily life without our smartphones. More and more of 
us will come to rely on high-tech electronics to help us take barbecue to the next level. Thermocouple meat probes and remote thermometers to tell us the exact internal temperature of our prime ribs or pork loins and digitally operated micro-blowers to regulate the temperature to the precise degree.
Den Udon
Sausage is the new bacon: After a decade of growth, bacon mania seems to be … levelling out. (The latest bacon trend: curing and smoking your own, then using it to make a bacon weave.) 2015 will become the year when sausage goes global, viral, and haute. New sausages, like Argentinian longaniza and Portuguese linguica, will join mainstream. We’ll use new tools, like sausage grilling baskets, and new techniques, like smoke-roasting, to serve grilled sausages that are neither raw in the centre nor burnt.
Best of Barbecue sausage grilling basket
Pizza hits the grill: Grilled pizza has been around for a long time. What is new is the proliferation of specialized accessories for cooking pizza on the grill. Pizza stones that give you the audibly crisp crust you get from a wood-burning pizza oven. Peels that help you transfer the pizza from the rolling board to the grill and back. Pizza cutters that make slicing your grilled pizza a snap. Whole dome-shaped pizza oven attachments that turn your kettle grill into a wood-burning oven. And free-standing portable gas-fired pizza ovens like the Pizzacraft Pizzeria Pronto that achieve temperatures of 700 degrees in 5 minutes.
Our next newsletter will cover the new products available this season. Check out our website for further information about TasteConnections www.tasteconnection.co.uk If you would like to talk to us about how we can help your business, please get in touch T: 01453 844868 or E: info@tasteconnection.com
Our aim is simple; to keep our customers informed of the latest trends in the food industry and how TasteConnection can help you address those trends. In this edition we look at the latest trends within the industry.
In each edition we will bring you some of the best and also most strange new product concepts to emerge on the global stage
