Hospitality trends: Dark kitchens, poshtels and eatertainment
The nominees for the 2019 Entree Awards have been announced, and that is always a great moment to look at the hospitality trends of the moment. We have listed the five most important ones for you.
1. Dark kitchens
Why open a restaurant in these times of staff shortages and sky-high rents, when everyone can have food delivered via Uber Eats or Deliveroo anytime and anywhere? Like Bright Kitchen’s five vegan restaurants, with a production kitchen in the Jordaan. German Kaetz also has several ‘dark kitchens’, as these location-less restaurants are called in our capital—and this is only the beginning of a worldwide explosion.
2. Eatertainment
We wrote about it before. Last year’s trend that is continuing this year too: hospitality combined with entertainment. Think of the popular karaoke bar Duke of Tokyo, the jeu-de-boules courts of Mooie Boules in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Besides playing, we also want to bring out the child within us. In London, there was already Ball Pit Bar BALLIE, a wonderfully funny bar with a giant ball pit. In Mierlo, HUP opened, a hotel with an adults-only slide in the lobby.
3. Hidden restaurants
Top restaurants hidden behind an invisible door or accessible only with a secret password. A trend that has been going on in London and New York for a long time has crossed over to the Netherlands, where, among others, the hidden high-end restaurants Graphite, Kit 384 and Naylor’s (all three in Amsterdam) and Onglet (Maastricht) have opened their hidden doors.
4. Gallery restaurants
New generations like art, as long as they can wash it down with a tasty gin & tonic. Another international trend is the combination of trendy art galleries and restaurants, such as ARTTE in Barcelona, a gallery, tea shop and restaurant all in one. Now we also have GaleriAAA by Mangaire in Rotterdam and Tilburg’s Doloris rooftop bar, which also features a gigantic, surrealist art maze.
5. Poshtels
Hostels have long since stopped being those hufterproof dormitories with a canteen like the ones you find in better prisons. There is an increasing demand for glostels, or glossy hostels. Sharing a room or bathroom is not so bad at all, as long as you can order a trendy cocktail and there is a pleasant wellness centre or all-day vegan restaurant. Wonderful new examples are BUNK in Utrecht, in a monumental church, or The Green Elephant in Maastricht.
The Entree Awards are an initiative of hospitality trade magazine Entree.
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