Only Waitrose Could Declare Fancy Crumpets the Breakout Food of 2019

Waitrose’s 2019 food trends are as Waitrose as could be

Premium supermarket Waitrose has credited Yotam Ottolenghi — okay — and Marcus Wareing — erm — for driving a singular food trend: The Posh Crumpet. Its 2019 Food and Drink Report says that sales of crumpets rose 27 percent this year, and attributes the rise — and, more shakily, what Waitrose shoppers are doing with those crumpets — to dishes like Ottolenghi’s prawn toast crumpet at Rovi in Fitzrovia and Marcus Wareing’s cockle butter crumpet that is nowhere to be found. It also declares cheese and Marmite a posh topping, which, no.

More highlights from the report include a rise in celery juice drinking, the phrase “skewered food is at the sharp end of fashion,” and the word “seaganism,” which is a self-regarding take on pescatarianism. Having already namedropped Ottolenghi, it goes on to declare “Middle Eastern food at home” a new trend — Plenty was published in 2010 — and, perhaps most interestingly, says that “very spicy foods,” like spicy meatballs, are on the rise.

And in other news...

• The living meme of artful seasoning, Salt Bae, has been trying to open a debut London restaurant for some time. First, it was to be Salt Bae does steak in Knightsbridge — his signature restaurant, limp-wristed flourishes and all — but now it looks like Salt Bae burgers in Mayfair will be his first adventure in the U.K.
• Trivet, nestled between London Bridge and Bermondsey, is the London debut for former Fat Duck big cheeses Jonny Lake and Isa Bal. It opened 5 November and the Instagram crew are already out in force — a potato millefeuille with sake and white chocolate is the early hit.
• Pizza Express has been resisting its mounting debt through various means: straightforward denial; a cute video full of pizza puns; more, less straightforward denial. Now it’s cutting a small hole out of its reported £1.1 billion loan debt and filling it with 80 million pounds from owner Hony Capital. The Leggera Model of restaurant economics: Will it ever catch on?
• Here are all of London’s best and most recent restaurant openings.
• Restaurant magnate Richard Caring has reportedly trademarked the would-be restaurant name “Sexy Pizza.” [Propel/Twitter]
• Good tweet: