Think Elegant and Indulgent: An exclusive survey of commercial restaurants indicates that operators are planning to offer their patrons Holiday Menu Items that are more elegant, exotic and indulgent.

If you follow the results of our survey, you may want to take note of the following, by menu part.

Seafood continues to be the leading appetizer platform. The MenuMine! database from Foodservice Research Institute indicates that 34% of appetizers include seafood on a year round basis and this is roughly equivalent to the 32% of appetizer menu items with a seafood during the holiday season. With cheese, however, nearly four times as many menu items (19%) include cheese in the holiday season than year round. A little less chicken (16%) is being featured during the November-December holiday season, which is down 4% from our year round measures. See chart, below.

For Seafood Appetizers, breaded/battered shrimp leads the way followed by the old standby, shrimp cocktail. Don’t forget other good sellers such as calamari, crab cakes, crab grabbers, oysters, mussels and clams. A good portion of appetizers are cheese based, led by mozzarella sticks, and quesadillas, but there are some unique elegants like baked brie, cream cheese won tons, and parmigiana di malanzane. For Veggies, mushrooms and onion dishes are leaders. In breads, bruschetta, garlic bread and cheese bread top the list. In Carbs, it’s potato skins and even nachos, and for an extra special touch how about sesame peanut noodles, crostini di polenta, or simmi dumplings.

Entrees

Casual and midscale restaurants offering a holiday special long ago dropped the practice of limiting the menu to turkey or to even a single protein. On average, 4.8 unique protein entrees are served, with some restaurants offering 8 to 10 protein choices for holiday dining. Holiday menu selections in restaurants for Seafood (35% of menu selections), Poultry (33%) and Red Meats (32%) are just about even. It is speculated that tonnage may follow this same pattern with a plus or minus variance of 5% either way.

   
When it comes to Holiday entrees, there are some real changes compared to year round lineups for sit down restaurants. There is a huge increase in seafood, which normally comprises 25% of all protein entrees, but then shoots up to a 35% share on holiday dining specials. Comparing year around dining with holiday specials, poultry stays roughly the same (34%/33%) with chicken volume shifting over somewhat to turkey, duck and game birds. Red meats drop in volume, however, there appears to be a trade off as processed meats drop drastically in favor of more expensive roasts, steaks and chops. See chart, below.

Sauces/Gravies/Marinades

It appears that operators are looking to a wide choice of sauces, gravies and marinades to add special flavor to holiday menus. Most frequently mentioned sauces are hollandaise followed by béarnaise, clam sauce, gravy (giblet, chicken, dark brown and beef), cranberry sauce, red sauce, marsala, marinara, alfredo, tomato, pineapple sauce, salsa, merlot sauce and about 50 others. A few suggestions follow:

Side Dishes

Baked potatoes and mashed potatoes lead sides and accompaniments followed by yams, potato wedges, sweet potatoes, broccoli, green beans, squash, wild rice, creamed spinach, candied carrots, spanish rice, zucchini and asparagus. Unique selections include root slaw, guacamole and blue lake beans.

Desserts

Not too surprising was the fact that cream pies such as pumpkin, meringue, key lime, account for most of the desserts, followed by cheesecake, chocolate (flourless and regular), fruit pies, ice cream, puddings (rice and bread), cobblers, and crème brulees, but also custards, tarts, mousse, cookies, brownies, silk pies, mud pies and cannoli. But it is the fanciness that’s different. There are quite a few signature desserts, as follows:

Beverages

For holiday cold beverages, there was definitely an increase in the mentions of alcohol. Right after soft drinks, wines, both red and white, beer and champagne were the most often mentioned cold beverages in the survey conducted by Foodservice Research Institute. In terms of mixed drinks, margaritas were mentioned most often. Among hot beverages, coffee was mentioned 55% of the time, and tea was mentioned 29% of the time, well ahead of cappuccino, latte, hot chocolate and espresso in that order.