Dry-aged vegetables, sensory immersion and elevated tea are among the food trends that chef Stephen Toevs, Marriott International's vice president culinary, global operations, identified for 2025. News editor Johanna Jainchill chatted with Toevs about what culinary trends surprised him, what's out the door and why a Caesar salad never goes out of style.
Stephen Toevs
Q: How do you come to that point where you identify something and say, this is now a trend?
A: I travel quite a bit and get in the kitchen with a lot of our chefs, so I see as a trend starts to take hold. When I see certain things happening in multiple locations, I start to think to myself, this could be something that's really taking shape as we move along through the year. So a lot of it is coming from our chefs, and a lot is me tapping into my global counterparts across the world to ask them what they are seeing.
Q: Did any of these trends surprise even you in terms of being really new and something you hadn't seen?
A: The dry-aged vegetable one is something nobody saw coming. Everybody knows of dry-aged meats, and then dry-aged fish in the past couple years has really been coming onto the scene. A very select amount of chefs dry age tuna or mackerel. But dry-aged vegetables really came on last year. At the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay they use dry-aged persimmons in one of their dishes. I'm really excited about dry-aged mushrooms, which really pulls out umami to like the 10th degree.
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Q: "Sensory immersion" was also new to me.
A: That came about from a lot of our hotels in the meetings and events space. Meetings planners are looking for something different than a standard banquet event in a ballroom. Our hotels have gotten really creative with that, whether they're projecting different imagery on the walls of the ballroom that coincide with the food or before a course walking through the area burning incense or an herb. Or dimming the lights maybe even close to darkness, so you lose that visual information but flavor gets enhanced.
Q: Can you identify the origin of some of these trends?
A: I love "newstalgia" because everything old somehow becomes new again, right? Take baked Alaska, from the old-school steakhouses in the '70s and '80s. It's come back in a really cool way. When you cut into baked Alaska now there's a molten chocolate cake experience or they're flaming it tableside. Our chefs are having a lot of fun with that as well as things like baked potato. Can you take it to the 10th degree and put caviar on it and fill it with seafood? We can thank TikTok a little for the "newstalgia" movement because a lot of people who are not necessarily culinary-trained are taking some older dishes and making them new. Our chefs see that or they might have the idea themselves and say, "I can riff off of that." It's really about creating an experience for our guests, because at the end of the day, they want to be adventurous eaters, but they also want to be in a place where they feel like it's a little bit familiar.
Q: What food trends are on the way out?
A: CBD in everything: People want proven functional ingredients rather than something gimmicky. Plant-based meats: Our guests are seeking natural plant ingredients, like legumes with rice, quinoa or mushrooms. Overly complicated molecular gastronomy: A lot of our chefs are returning to traditional, ingredient-focused cooking. The deconstruction of foods, like a Caesar salad or something. People just want a really great Caesar salad. If you look at in-room dining across our hotels, the top three menu items are always going to be a Caesar salad, a burger and a club sandwich. Because those menu items are almost comfort food-ish when you're traveling. I tell chefs all the time, if you can nail those, you're well on your way to getting really great guest feedback.
CORRECTED: This report was updated on Feb. 4 to correct the title of Stephen Toevs. He is Marriott International's vice president culinary, global operations.