Bookatable, the restaurant booking platform, has released its latest Quarterly Dining Trends report based on the last 12 months of dining and booking data. The research reveals the UK’s favourite cuisines and investigates trends in booking and dining across the nation throughout the year.
Looking at the most popular cuisines in the UK based on over 3 million British diners from Bookatable’s database, a number of clear trends have become apparent
- Burgers are big business, with the dish experiencing a boom in 2015 and Bookatable acquiring 71 new burger restaurants to its portfolio this past year alone. Bookings to burger outlets have seen the biggest increase of all food genres this year, increasing from just 21 bookings in 2014 to over 30,000 in 2015 – an increase of over 144,000%.
- The British love for all things Scandinavian has continued to grow in popularity, with Scandinavian restaurants proving extremely popular amongst British diners. Scandinavian cuisine was the second biggest growing cuisine in terms of bookings, rising from just 15 bookings in 2014 to almost 900 this year.
- In third place, barbecue restaurants complete the trio of favoured foods with Brits, and bookings for restaurants specialising in the smoked meats increased from 49 to over 750.
Top 10 cuisines with biggest year on year increase in bookings
- Burgers
- Scandinavian
- Barbecue
- South East Asian
- American
- Welsh
- Afternoon Tea
- Greek
- Japanese
- Thai
Out of favour
Looking at cuisines that have fallen out of favour with the British public this year, Bookatable has noted that Nepalese, Pakistani and Contemporary Italian cuisines have disappeared from the rankings. No bookings have been made for restaurants in these genres in 2015 to date. Other cuisines that have seen a reduction in bookings include South African and Vietnamese, where restaurants have seen bookings fall by 64% and 63% respectively.
Top 10 cuisines with biggest year on year decrease in bookings
- Nepalese
- Pakistani
- Contemporary Italian
- Caribbean
- Oriental
- Eastern European
- Irish
- Viennese
- South African
- Vietnamese
Also on the rise
- Breakfast bookings have increased by 24% from 2014 to 2015. These findings support the growing trend for Brits looking to capitalise on an early start to the day.
- The data also revealed that working lunches are also on the rise. Over the last four years, weekday lunches have increased 25% across the UK. Looking specifically at London, weekday bookings in the West End have increased 28% and in the City of London have increased by 79%. These findings support a growing trend for professionals choosing to conduct business meetings over lunch in restaurants.
- Additionally, there’s a 72% increase in brunch bookings from 2014 to 2015. The rise of drinking prosecco with brunch and the growing trend for restaurants to offer ‘bottomless bubbles’ as part of a meal offering may have contributed to this significant statistic. Looking back at the last three months, Bookatable’s data shows that Tuesday (23%) and Monday (16%) were the most popular days for bookings for restaurants offering bottomless bubbles, suggesting that people are looking to treat themselves to a special start to the day when taking long weekend breaks.
Joe Steele, CEO of Bookatable, commented: “2015 has undoubtedly been the year of burgers, brunch and bubbles. As a restaurant booking service, we cater for everyone and these results show how diverse Brits taste and dining requirements continue to be.”
For more information click here
