ATLANTA, Georgia—Kimpton launched its Culinary + Cocktail Pattern Forecast, which shares predictions from its international restaurant and beverage staff for 2026.
The annual forecast underscores Kimpton’s method to foods and drinks, delivered to life at greater than 100 eating places and bars throughout its 83 properties worldwide.
Katherine Wojcik, director of applications and partnerships at IHG Motels & Resorts, stated, “As friends search deeper connections by means of what they eat and drink, we’re seeing a shift towards experiences that have interaction each sense. Cocktails, beverage applications, and meals menus have turn into storytelling platforms—expressions of place, tradition, and creativity. Our cooks and bartenders mix international inspiration with native character to craft drinks and dishes that shock, delight, and invite dialog. It’s not about chasing developments—it’s about main with authenticity, artistry, and a contact of play.”
Visitors of Kimpton resorts, eating places, and bars around the globe could have the chance to expertise new flavors that deliver these developments to life all 12 months lengthy. This 12 months’s Kimpton Culinary + Cocktail Traits are:
Under are findings from the Culinary + Cocktail Pattern Forecast for 2026
2026 Culinary Traits
Charcoal
Charcoal will expertise an increase in reputation, each as an ingredient and as a medium for cooking. Whether or not it’s protein or veggies, friends can count on to particularly expertise Binchotan, a Japanese white charcoal. Anticipate to see menu gadgets like charred cauliflower satay with lemon cream at choose properties within the coming months.
Pancakes
Worldwide pancake variations like Moroccan Msemen, Korean Hotteok, and Vietnamese Bánh Xèo will function a base for taste pairings. These globally impressed pancake mixtures, such because the paella-inspired martini with blinis and caviar on the aspect discovered on the menu at Kimpton Sawyer Resort in Sacramento, are among the many new varieties.
Heritage & Third-Tradition Delicacies
In 2026, heritage and third-culture delicacies will turn into a preferred approach to have fun a number of cultures multi function dish. Menu gadgets will emphasize private, lived experiences inside one or a number of cultures. This type combines influences from the chef’s multicultural upbringing. This upcoming development might be discovered at Kimpton KAFD Riyadh, the place a terrine of native lamb is served with contemporary blended leaves and herbs alongside a lamb chamomile demi-glace.
Citrus
Varieties and distinctive hybrids of citrus, like Calamansi, Hallabong, and Sumo, will seem on foods and drinks menus. These fruits deliver tartness, sweetness, and aroma, inspiring cooks and mixologists to experiment with new pairings and shows like yuzu-infused cocktails and Calamansi–miso dressings for seafood or salads.
Dips
Many customers are skipping a bigger conventional primary course in favor of smaller plates. This may see the in-between consuming aesthetic evolve as entrée-inspired dips are updating traditional dishes like gumbo and cacio e pepe to create bite-sized choices of traditional meals.
Lamberto Valdez Lara, government chef at Kimpton Maa-Lai Bangkok, stated, “2026 would be the 12 months that packs a ‘crunch.’ Cooks are layering textures to create dynamic dishes that flip strategies and substances into added palate experiences. We’re additionally seeing charcoal come to the fore in an enormous manner. That is all the way down to its means to impart wealthy taste with international influences—like Korean Hotteok or Vietnamese Bánh Xèo. Consolation meals like pancakes are being redefined by means of a worldwide lens, whereas pure botanicals and distinctive citrus varieties deliver freshness and vibrancy to the plate.”
Cocktail Traits
- Botanicals Swap Out Sugar: As customers embrace pure substances, generally added sugar will give approach to fruit and botanicals like rose, elderflower, and cherry. Cocktails like “Souq of Byblos” use rose to sweeten a mixture of gin, grapefruit, lemon, bitters, and cardamom at Ladyhawk at Kimpton La Peer Resort in West Hollywood.
- Texture Takes Over: Textures, starting from crispy and crunchy to foamy and fizzy, will take over in 2026. Whether or not it’s a matcha with creamy foam and a crunchy topping or gummy boba in a silky-smooth latte, throughout the kitchen and bar, cooks and bartenders will experiment with substances that add textural complexity and juxtaposition throughout the palate.
- Banana Milk: Common in Korea, this milk different, typically paired with espresso and espresso, will achieve broad attraction globally within the coming months. With a pure sweetness and {smooth}, silky texture, banana milk might be paired with different candy flavors like whipped cream, cinnamon, caramel, and chocolate, and it will likely be accessible on request at choose Kimpton properties worldwide.
- Cultivating Espresso Cultivars: Specialty beans, terroir flavors, climate-resilient sorts, co-fermented and seasonal blends will drive new espresso developments in 2026. Contemporary varietals of beans like Colombian Gesha, Ethiopian Hambela, Ethiopian Uraga Heo, Papua New Guinea Volcanic Robusta, and Lijang Yunnan Bam will achieve traction at Kimpton properties around the globe.
- The Latest Spritz: The Garibaldi: The Garibaldi will turn into the brand new favourite aperitivo cocktail. Low ABV however excessive in refreshing taste, menus will embody variations utilizing mixtures of distinctive citrus and Italian aperitifs.
- Layered Drinks: Blended drinks will probably be changed with drinks providing distinct layers of taste. From cocktails to espresso drinks, layered drinks will deliver collectively new style pairings.
- Backyard to Glass: Crops: With the recognition of natural and earthy drink flavors on the rise, vegetation together with aloe, chayote, eucalyptus, and pepperberry will seem in additional cocktails as the most recent evolution of the trade’s garden-to-glass motion. Backyard to glass presents friends the chance to style the freshest seasonal, domestically sourced substances doable, like within the Alianthus—a cocktail that balances the flavour profile of black pepper, ginger, and lemon grass that’s featured at Kimpton Da An – Taipei in Taiwan.
- Cocktails Get Techy: Bars will transition from smoke to fragrant machines and adapt revolutionary processes, together with switching and sous-pression that depend on deep-freezing to change or launch taste. This development might be seen within the cocktails “Berry Opera,” which makes use of lacto-fermentation to create a home made berry vinegar that pairs with peach, raspberry, and hibiscus tea; and “Virtually Well-known,” which leverages molecular gastronomy spheres to mix fat-washed whiskey with black truffle oil, curaçao, chocolate absinthe, and orange bitter spheres. These choices might be discovered on bar menus at Kimpton Qiantan Shanghai.
- Wine: Asia-Pacific on the Rise, Bordeaux is Again: Asia-Pacific wines and fizzy Spanish wine cocktails, like Kalimotxo, Tinto Verano, and Rebujito will develop in international reputation, whereas Bordeaux, sidelined for different in style grapes through the years, will get pleasure from a comeback on wine menus, together with these of Kimpton Qiantan Shanghai. With that, wine cocktails are rising to the floor, with mixology bringing to life drinks like “Sakura Sake Spritz,” which mixes Sake, gin, Sakura, lime juice, and Cava; and “Bordeaux Berry Fizz,” which options Bordeaux, white wine, blackberry liqueur, lemon juice, and easy syrup.
Jim Wrigley, Beverage Supervisor of Kimpton Seafire Resort + Spa, stated, “Tech is remodeling each nook of our lives, and our drinks will probably be no exception. 2026 will see extra improvements like aroma expertise and cryogenics launch new flavors on the bar. We’ll additionally see layered drinks which are as lovely to have a look at as they’re to style, a re-envisioning of the garden-to-glass botanical cocktails, and stalwart spirituous serves outmoded by low-ABV options like The Garibaldi. Substances like banana milk, with its pure sweetness and velvety texture, will permit us to reimagine what consolation in a cup appears to be like like, as friends search actual experiences amongst the entire display time. It’s a time of curiosity and creativity, particularly for Kimpton.”
