2018: a culinary look back
The year is almost over, and what do we do then? Look back on a year full of culinary highs and lows. An overview:
January
The year had barely begun, but on January 20, Paul Bocuse passed away – the personification of nouvelle cuisine – at the respectable age of 91 in his native village near Lyon.
Happier news was the Oscar nomination for food documentary Knife Skills and the arrival of the four-part comic book series by Anthony Bourdain – Hungry Ghosts.
February
The month in which it became clear that pork fat is one of the most nutritious things you can eat, in which KFC ran out of chicken, Albert Heijn sold a star burger and we were glued to the television for the final season of Koken met Van Boven and the first season of David Chang‘s Ugly Delicious.
March
Top simply because it alliterates so nicely: HEMA’s Easter egg pop-up shop opened its doors at the beginning of March. Seventeen flavors – disco sprinkles! coffee crisp! tompouce! – mmmm. And as if that hadn’t already sent us to seventh heaven, none other than the pope also came out with a cookbook: Eating with Francis.
April
We certainly don’t mind that the number of cooking shows continues to grow unabated. Star chefs battling it out? Bring it on! And by now the pink KitKat is impossible to imagine absent from the snack aisle, but it was only since April this year that we got to know this fresh, completely new type of chocolate.
May
Okay, they kept us waiting for a bit, but in May SNCKBR really did open Europe’s largest vegan restaurant in Utrecht. Also perfectly in keeping with the millennial zeitgeist: the announcement of a real Avocado Museum in San Diego and the arrival of an Oscar-like television show: The World Restaurant Awards.
June
It really went very quiet in the newsroom when we heard the news of Anthony Bourdain’s suicide. Because, man, how much we were (and remain) fans of this outspoken, traveling food lover.
Fortunately, the month also had some good news in store: Ottolenghi opened a new restaurant called Rovi, it turns out you can buy the best champagne at Aldi, the best spareribs in Sliedrecht, at Slagerij van Tilburg, FEBO launched a ‘haute friture‘ clothing line, Osteria Francescana was named the best restaurant in the world and De Librije was the highest-ranked restaurant in the Netherlands, in 51st place on the list.
July
The summer month started especially well for people from Brabant: an April Fool’s joke became reality when Braboticons really became possible through Giphy.
After FEBO, McDonald’s naturally couldn’t be left behind, so they too came out with a fashion line, although it was a little harder to obtain. The awards parade continued in July, by the way, when cocktail queen Tess Posthumus was (once again) named the world’s best female bartender.
August
Besides Bocuse, this year we also had to say goodbye to another figurehead of nouvelle cuisine. On August 6, Joël Robuchon passed away at the age of 73 from pancreatic cancer. All his restaurants are bucket-list worthy: if you visit all the l’Atelier de Joël Robuchon restaurants in Tokyo, Paris, Las Vegas, London, Hong Kong and Taipei, you have a world tour under your belt in one go.
Speaking of a culinary world tour: according to Tripadvisor, these are the food cities of 2018. But for a craving, you could also stay at home in front of the television: De Nieuwe Lekkerbek became our new favorite. With Emma’s ‘De Nieuwe Lekkerbek commentary‘ included, of course.
September
Salted caramel passé? Hell no! KitKat Chunky didn’t announce a limited-edition fudgy (!) salted caramel for nothing in September. More of a savory food lover? Utrecht got its first cheese fondue restaurant this month. And what else can you find in Utrecht (the province, that is): the best coffee! At Boot koffie in Amersfoort, to be precise.
October
October turned out to be a month for star chefs in all their forms. From the cookbook by Snoop Dogg, to a pop-up risotteria with a Michelin star in Amsterdam and the top ten sexiest chefs in the world. Oh, and let’s certainly not forget the launch of our own interview series Ask a chef, in which we ask (star) chefs all about their culinary habits every week, such as: what do they eat when they’re drunk? What do they always buy ready-made? And what is their ultimate guilty pleasure? Add the KFC and chill playlist and your day can’t go wrong.
November
Sorry (not sorry), we’re going to keep preaching to our own parish for a little longer because November was a hugely exciting, important but above all fun month for us: not only did we organize the FavorFlav Food Top 100 for the third time (find out who won here), but we also released our first-ever FavorFlav cookbook! How do you make the very best rendang or the creamiest crème brûlée? In The 100 best dishes you must have eaten, we explain it step by step.
Of course, that wasn’t the only thing that happened this month. Brandt & Levie came out with their own hamburger: the Porky Porchetta (mmm), Tony’s Chocolonely announced a factory with a roller coaster (!!!) and Frietboutique introduced the chocolate croquette.
During the Entree Awards, among others De Restauratie, Chin Chin Club, QO hotel and Tess Posthumus received the necessary awards, but the most important awards news of the year came from the Nobel Committee. This month, they nominated Michelin-starred chef José Andrés for the Nobel Peace Prize.
December
That doesn’t change the fact that plenty of chefs sat on the seats of the DeLaMar Theater with their buttocks clenched in December. The Michelin stars for 2019 were handed out there. And good news: we have twelve new starred restaurants!
Finally, the enormous range of food-related Christmas decorations (Nutella, BBQs, McDonald’s), this awesome exhibition at FOAM and this bizarre vegan trend once again prove that the food hype is far from over.
Thankfully. We are already looking forward to an equally eventful culinary 2019.
