A new year, new delicious food trends to enjoy!
We asked ATTA Restaurant’s super-talented Chef Daniel Franco to get out his crystal ball and tell us what foods and ingredients will be hot this year. Lucky for us, it all sounds heavenly.
This year’s watchwords, Daniel says, come down to some of our favorites: “Sustainable, healthy, and diverse eating,” will be key, with a focus on whole, simple, and ancestral ingredients, prepared in new, creative ways.
Here’s a look ahead to some mouthwatering 2024 food trends (including many you can sample right here at ATTA Restaurant on the banks of our Cenote Tuuch):
Chiles Blaze On
From tingly Tajin to flat-out scorching habaneros, chiles are on every single foodie trend list this year, especially paired with sweet or sour flavors. (Yup, the restaurant world has finally caught up to Mexican children, who typically love spicy candy!)
At ATTA, try our heat-laced aguachile (like ceviche) in a tangy-sweet orange emulsion, or our fiery green striped bass ceviche.
But don’t expect to suffer like in those youtube videos of people crying from ghost peppers or mega-hot Korean ramen! Think instead: sensuous, adventurous tastes that feel like that special heat of falling in love.
Mexico’s endless variety of chiles, from the fruity, mild chile ancho, to the intense serrano, “go beyond simply providing spiciness to our dishes,” says Chef Daniel.
Layered with other tastes, they create “depth of flavor and complexity for our culinary creations.” Yum.
Healthy, Vibrant Cocktails
This year’s trendiest drinks blend top-shelf alcohol with the freshest tropical fruit and herbs, for a blast of plant medicine goodness.
At ATTA, we’ve blended Creyente Mezcal with zingy ginger syrup, fresh pineapple, and airy aquafaba to create our guest-favorite K’an Bolay cocktail.
Or try our refreshing Imox: Matusalem Platino Rum, with sparkling ginger beer, lemon, and an acidy-sweet guava shrub (a vinegary syrup).
If you’re thirsting for some chile heat, our Kabáh cocktail will hit the spot: Volcán de Mi Tierra Tequila, cool cucumber, punchy jalapeño chile, fresh mint and lime, and mineral water.
Quality is the True Luxury
Forget about flashy caviar and champagne, the true luxuries this year will be whole, high-quality ingredients.
People are seeking out “authenticity, quality, and traceability,” in the ingredients we eat, and we “increasingly want to know the origins of our food,” explains Chef Daniel.
ATTA’s been committed to the highest quality ingredients since day one, seeking out local, seasonal artisanal producers near our Tulum restaurant, for delicious ingredients like rare melipona honey, vibrant green chaya, exquisite citrus fruits from Oxkutzcab, perfect papayas and hand-produced cacao.
Ancestral Drinks Get New Life
Trend-chasers, take note: all those cool traditional drinks you can find guys selling from carts across Mexico will be hot this year, according to gastronomy gurus worldwide.
Tepache, an ancestral Mexican fermented pineapple drink, is now sold in cans at Whole Foods markets in the U.S. Can fancy versions of pozol and tejuino be far behind? (If you don’t know what those are, google away, or look for them on the streets of Tulum.)
At ATTA, we’ve brought back a traditional Maya drink from Chiapas state, called “pox” (pronounced “posh”). It’s a spirit distilled from corn with sugar cane, and used in Maya ceremonies. Imagine “a smooth flavor with earthy notes,” Chef Daniel says.
ATTA’s unique Pox cocktail, called “Kin,” features Pox, red pepper, carrot, aquafaba, and lemon for a cool, different, salady-tasting drink.
Vegetarian Vibes
Did you know it takes 15,000 liters of water to produce just one kilo of beef? That’s almost 14 years worth of drinking water for an average human!
So it’s no wonder going veggie gets trendier by the year. Whole Foods’ yearly predictions say that in 2024, vegetarians will prefer simple whole plant foods instead of “fake meat” loaded with chemicals.
That all fits perfectly with ATTA’s fresh, delectable vegetarian recipes, such as Heirloom Tomato Toast—slices of sourdough bread toasted and topped with a homemade romesco sauce, made with ripe heirloom tomatoes and a blend of walnuts, garlic, and olive oil. Or, our Criollo Corn Enchiladas with Curry Pumpkin and Pumpkin Blossom Sauce, which mixes ancient Aztec ingredients with spicy Indian curry flavors. An unusual but lip-smacking combo, bringing us right to the next trend…
Unusual Global Fusions
Fusion cuisine is not just chef Wolfgang Puck inventing California-style pizzas in the 1980’s. It’s a meeting between totally different culinary cultures, that a master chef expertly blends into something new and amazing.
For example, ATTA’s exquisite Pumpkin Flower Bucatini with Hazelnut Butter and Truffle Oil, which combines parts of ancestral Mexican, Italian, and French cuisines.
Long, hollow bucatini pasta gets filled with fresh, colorful pumpkin flowers, and bathed in silky hazelnut butter and earthy, ambrosial truffle oil. It’s a savory treat Chef Daniel created out of his love for world cuisines.
From Mexico to the World
Daniel is actually a perfect chef to headline the new global-local fusion food trend, thanks to his interesting background.
Growing up in Cancun, his first food love was his grandparents’ tasty cuisine from Puebla and Yucatan. He grew up on flavorful delights like chiles en nogada with cashew and pomegranate, or Tzik, a Yucatec Maya combination of shredded meat with bitter orange and purple onions.
Then he worked with top chefs from around the world, who taught him the haute-technique of French cooking, Japanese gastronomy’s beautiful presentation, Mediterranean cuisine “with its unique combination of sweet, spicy, sour and salty flavors,” and Peruvian food that draws on African, Asian, and Indigenous cooking.
At ATTA, Chef Daniel brings all that together, to create unique new dishes in a “Liberated Kitchen” style. It’s definitely a big part of what makes ATTA one of Tulum’s hottest new restaurants.
“Each of these cuisines has its own charm and distinctive character, and I love exploring and learning from them to enrich my own cooking and offer my guests an exciting dining experience,” he says.
So…which of these trends do you want to try first?
Come dine alongside our sparkling Cenote Tuuch and sample all these wonderful dishes. Food trends aside, they’re full of our chef’s passion, and our land’s bountiful harvest. And in the end, that’s what really matters.
