And so here it is 2025. I still feel in a whirlwind after such a busy Christmas season for The Henley Larder; full of Christmas fairs and gift hampers flying out across the country to delight folks with independently produced treats.

How are you all doing? 

Did you consume the required Christmas quantity of cheese? Did you munch mince pies till you could mince no more? Snaffle your favourite Quality Streets before the tub was left with the duds? Ok – then I think we’re ready to leave Christmas behind and move into a new year of foodie fabulousness. And what better way to kick off the year with a little look forward to this years projected food trends.

As our fair town of Henley starts to stir this January fresh menus are being released in old favourites and indeed entirely new menus available to peruse at recently opened eateries. Whether it’s the new cafe menu including poké bowls at The Little Angel or the very modern ingredient style list menu at the newly opened The Duke there’s certainly some opportunity for new flavours in town.

The first of our foodie trends for this year in fact lies in hospitality. It has been speculated that this is the year that things begin to turn back around and folks return to eating out. It has been a tough time for hospitality over the last few years and with rising costs in all areas the tightrope they walk doesn’t get any less scary. But in the same breath there is a need amongst our communities to get back to some pre pandemic behaviour and to socialise more. Many of us, me included, have lost our mojo in going out to see friends over the last few years;  instead forming a preference for snuggling in at home. Whilst being at home, cooking, enjoying your house and family is a lovely thing we are pack creatures in many ways and going out, enjoying new food and meeting old friends and new is good for our mental well being. So that feels like a winner all round for us as consumers and for all our fabulous pubs, cafes and restaurants. Where will you go and who will you go with?

On to my favourite gimmick trend for this year. Fridge scaping. What is this you cry? Well much like its close relation, table scaping this TikTok phenomenon involves styling and curating your fridge contents. Think beautiful china bowls and wicker baskets to store your chilled food, perhaps even a bunch of flowers in there looking pretty. Is this just social media silliness? Well there are arguments that this extreme process of care in how you store your food and storage styling potentially sparking joy could be a good thing to encourage using our food and avoiding food waste. I think there’s a middle ground to be found here. More care for our fridge so we know what’s in there and avoid wastage without a necessity for gingham lined baskets. But yes, I will be following that hashtag on Instagram with glee.

And my final 2025 projected trend is one close to my heart. A real focus on British food – both a look at regional dishes and also providing ideas for British grown alternatives to typically imported ingredients. For a multitude of reasons the import of ingredients is becoming a more complicated and expensive venture. The pathway to promoting more British produced larder ingredients, though not a new concept has never been more relevant. Fantastic producers like Hodmedods have long been flying the flag for British grown pulses such as quinoa and fava beans coming up with a brilliant array of flavoursome products as well as a great catalogue of recipes.

And this doesn’t stop with beans – British wine, gin and beer using homegrown product bases are also set for a rise. Cheers! Let’s hope as a country we can club together to recognise this need for a change and to support our makers, bakers, farmers & producers and in turn our local economy. 

And what is a regional Oxfordshire dish we should be trying? Well after a little look it seems that cake features quite heavily. Cider cake and also Lardy cake – due to the fact that we are famed as a pig rearing county, so yes that means sausages are on the menu too.

So that’s a look ahead for 2025, let’s see what comes to foodie fruition. 

Right – I’m off to tart up my fridge and bake a lardy cake. Till next month lovely Henley when romance is in the air with Valentines Day. You’ll find me popping up at Asquiths Teddy Bear shop Sat 8th & Sun 9th Feb if you fancy getting your loved one a treat and saying hello. Stay warm.

Zoë xx