5 restaurant trends to watch this spring

Spring is coming, and that means cooking with English peas and fava beans, morels and ramps, fiddleheads and rhubarb, just as it does every year. But seasonal produce isn't the only factor inspiring restaurant offerings over the next few months.

Here's a look at five trends — including flavors, cuisines and processes — that you can expect to see more of this spring.

Mediterranean goes mainstream

The cuisines of Spain, southern France, Italy, Greece, Turkey and North Africa have been growing steadily in popularity for the past decade, but they were given a meaningful shot in the arm recently. A study by the New England Journal of Medicine documenting what people have been claiming for years: that the region’s diet is good for the heart. Combine that with the now widespread acceptance of hummus and Greek yogurt, and you have a trend with real legs.

You’ll see Mediterranean touches this spring at places such as DGS Delicatessen in Washington, D.C., where chef Barry Koslow will be adding black sesame yogurt to spring pea soup with smoked salmon tartare. And at T. Cook’s at the Royal Palms Resort and Spa in Phoenix, chef Todd Sicolo has introduced a springtime salad of shaved asparagus and preserved lemon — a common North African ingredient — with morels, Reggiano cheese and tomatoes.

Chains are bringing Mediterranean influences to their food, too. For example, 147-unit Corner Bakery Café, based in Dallas, is adding a lemon chicken orzo soup to its menu this spring.

Restaurants will also be serving plenty of straight-up Mediterranean dishes, such as the Eastern Mediterranean parsley-and-bulgur salad Tabbouleh on the menu at True Food Kitchen, Sam Fox’s six-unit chain based in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Even decidedly non-Mediterranean concepts are getting in on the action: 31-unit BD’s Mongolian Grill is adding such items as tomato Parmesan soup, made with diced tomatoes mixed with garlic, herbs and Parmesan cheese — a Mediterranean mix if ever there was one.

Young garlic becomes the new ramp

Many chefs who were asked about what they were looking forward to this spring pointed to the usual seasonal favorites such as ramps and morels, but even more expressed enthusiasm about spring garlic.

Whether they meant the green shoots that are suitable for stir-frying or the young bulbs that are sweeter and lighter but more aromatic than garlic during the rest of the year, chefs seem particularly excited about this particular spring specialty.

John des Rosiers, the chef of Inovasi in Chicago, said he’s positively sick of springtime ramps, the leek-like vegetables that sprout during this time of year. “I like ramps, but enough is enough. We’ve got to start doing something else,” he said.

For him that something is young garlic. He’s thinking of poaching the greens, “to take some of the harshness out,” and then making a pesto out of them, perhaps to be served with savory chanterelle custard.

He’s also planning on charring the young bulbs on a grill, chopping them and making a salsa out of them with lime juice and olive oil. “It’s really great with different types of seafood,” he said.

Beverage flights take off

A standard at many independent and fine-dining restaurants, beverage flights, or small tastes of a variety of drinks, are now gracing the menus of more chain restaurants – and are including more than just wine.

Restaurateurs say beverage flights can add an educational component to a meal and enhance the dining experience, as well as provide a boost to checks.

One of the latest chains to add drink flights to its menu is 223-unit California Pizza Kitchen. CPK has added three wine flights, each of three 3-ounce pours for $12.

The 66-unit Smokey Bones chain has taken a different approach. Eager to let guests try more craft beers even before it adds more taps to its restaurants, the chain is offering a bucket of four craft bottles for $13.

This winter we saw a surge in after-dinner drink flights, and we can expect to see more of them this spring.

A certification for everything

Consumers have shown growing interest in where their food comes from. Whether they’re concerned about its wholesomeness, its sustainability, its healthfulness or its authenticity — or they just like an interesting story — they want to be assured of that they’re eating something good.

For years, the Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana has been trying, with some success, to use its authentic Neapolitan pizza certification to stimulate sales of Neapolitan tomatoes and flour. And recently, the Marine Stewardship Council affixed its seal to the Filet-O-Fish sandwich and Fish McBites from McDonald's, certifying that the chain is using certified sustainable Alaska pollock.

Now, more organizations are sprouting up to certify various aspects of food. This spring, The Daily Dish in Silver Spring, Md., is serving jumbo lump crabmeat that bears the Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ “True Blue” certification, verifying that it comes from the state’s waters.

Celebrity chef Paula Dean has teamed up with Florida Hospital to launch a line of healthy recipes called Healthy 100 Approved. These menu items, developed by dieticians, will be offered in restaurants in central Florida this spring. That designation joins the National Heart Association’s Heart-Check logo that’s affixed to certain menu items at Subway in a pilot program introduced last year.

At the higher end, Sanitas Per Escam — Latin for “health through eating” — is trying to gain traction by working with restaurants to develop menu items that fit its criteria of food that is not only good for you, but also sustainably sourced and delicious.

The expanding array of certifiable designations is likely to confuse both restaurateurs and their guests, but expect to see more of them in coming months. After that, maybe we’ll see a shakeout.

Pine pervades food, drinks

The influence of René Redzepi, chef of Noma in Copenhagen, can be felt in this trend — probably more of a fad, really — that incorporates the resinous, woody flavor of pine into food.

Smoking with pine boughs has been going on for a while, but now it’s being infused more directly into the food, and in more casual settings. For example at Stix, a new Mediterranean eatery in New York city that specializes in Greek food served on skewers, chef Nikolaos Stavrakakis purees pine with apple for one of his specialty juices.

David Schmidt, executive chef of the Enchantment resort in Sedona, Ariz., last year clipped pine stems to flavor beef broth and also steeped it in a light syrup that he used to make panna cotta. He’s planning on doing more of that this spring.