Gochujang is already in quick-service chains and kimchi is in every supermarket. When a cuisine reaches that point, it has stopped being new. What comes next are three successors: Middle Eastern — experts expect it to overtake the Asian cuisines within 12 to 18 months —, regional Mexican beyond the generic taco, and West African, which is already entering fine dining.
01 — The changing of the guard
When gochujang goes into a chain, it stops being a trend
Korean cooking has done what winning cuisines do: it has matured. Gochujang is in quick-service chains, kimchi is on the supermarket shelf, Korean BBQ is in any mid-sized city. That means something very concrete: it has stopped opening the conversation and has become an established cuisine — one we all love. It is a good product and consumption keeps growing, but the mental space marked «this is the new thing» has already moved somewhere else.
02 — The Middle East
The next evolution of the Mediterranean
Serious analysts agree: Middle Eastern cooking will overtake the Asian cuisines within the next 12 to 18 months as the reference cuisine on Western menus. It is not an isolated prediction — the market data is already showing up in the awards.
Dubai awarded its first two three-star Michelin restaurants in May 2025: Trèsind Studio — the first Indian restaurant in the world with three stars — and FZN by Björn Frantzén. Orfali Bros Bistro has been number one in MENA’s 50 Best three years running: 2023, 2024 and 2025. Modern Syrian cooking, three brothers from Aleppo. This is not a Dubai fashion: it is a structural scene.
The ingredients to watch and to bring in with judgement: labneh, za’atar, harissa, pomegranate, pistachio. «The next evolution of the Mediterranean», as the international press is already calling it. Spain has the cultural and Mediterranean proximity to get there before France or the United Kingdom — but only if it moves now.
03 — Regional Mexico
Beyond the generic taco
Mexico is already a cuisine twinned with Spain and thoroughly familiar — which is why here the opportunity is not to introduce it, but to go deeper. What comes next are the regional specialities. Four to watch closely:
- Oaxaca — the world of mole and single-origin mezcal. The region setting the agenda in high-end Mexican cooking.
- Yucatán — cochinita pibil done seriously, habanero salsas made with judgement.
- Baja California — ceviches, wines from the Valle de Guadalupe, a modern coastal cuisine that has defined its own path.
- Puebla — mole poblano, chiles en nogada, antojitos with real technique behind them.
The Spanish operator who commits to one specific region gets a narrative of their own: they tell a story instead of assembling a patchwork of clichés. And a narrative of your own means a higher average ticket and press that takes an interest, rather than one more «Mexican» section on a global menu.
04 — West Africa
Africa enters fine dining
Ikoyi, in London, holds two Michelin stars with an explicit focus on West African cooking. It is not an isolated case: it is the head of a wave that already has measurable traction among Gen Z and millennials.
The ingredients gaining presence on international menus: harissa, jollof rice, tagines, peri-peri. This is the «mental space» of new and interesting cooking that Spain occupied between 2000 and 2015 — the «I had not seen this before» space. Today that space is here.
For a Spanish operator, the honest way in is through a cook trained in the region, or through direct collaboration with one, not through distant interpretation. Modern African cuisines are not told well from Madrid without the voice of the people who cook them.
05 — For your restaurant
How to go in without caricature: four levers
Four design decisions for bringing in one of the three without turning it into fancy dress. Each with the logic behind it.
- Choose one. Not three. The patchwork — one Mexican dish, one Middle Eastern, one African — communicates that you are not seriously interested in any of them. The chosen cuisine has to run across the menu, not decorate it.
- Start with one lead ingredient, not with the whole menu. Labneh, harissa, mole, jollof. One done well, integrated into three or four dishes, teaches more than an entire new menu executed badly.
- Train the kitchen with judgement, not with AI. Time spent at origin, collaboration with a cook trained there, serious cookbooks. The difference between cooking with respect and caricature shows immediately, and the press marks it.
- Tell the story in the dining room. The customer pays for the narrative as much as for the plate. If your team cannot explain where each thing comes from in two sentences, the average-ticket opportunity is lost.
For my part, I am already a fan of all three. Which one your restaurant chooses will depend on what cooking you already have, what customer you want to build and where you have real capacity to train the team. But the window to move before everyone else is open. And it closes well before 2028.
Want to think through how to bring one of the three into your menu without turning it into fancy dress? At Eating Stories we design the entry of a new cuisine into your concept, looking at what you already have, what you are missing and where the customer who is already asking for it can be found.
