The Big Food Trends We’re Expecting to See in 2026
As we settle into 2026, we’re saying good by to the musty dusty habits of 2025 and welcoming in a new line up of buzz worthy food and drink trends. From pickles in your cocktails to moving on from matcha, we’ve a few predictions for what you’ll be drooling over all this year.
Pét-Nat Ciders
Craft beers and natural wines can step aside and let cider get its moment in the sun. Pét Nat is a portmanteau of pétillant naturel, which means naturally sparkling. Obviously we mainly associate this phrase with wines, but it can be applied to ciders too. They are still a little hard to find, but we predict you will be seeing these guys everywhere by summer, like the Killahora Bittersweet cider. They are perfect for sipping in the sunshine and pairing with charcuterie boards and salads.
Hojicha
2025 was a whopper year for matcha and now all the people who liked matcha before it was cool will be looking for the next thing to discover. Enter hojicha. What it lacks in fun colour, this reddish brown tea is makes up for with its robust nutty, roasted, almost smoky flavour. It is not as Instagrammable as matcha, but hardcore tea fans will be obsessed with it this year. You can try it at a few spots including Omma at Brown Thomas Planet Beauty and at Matcha Matsukawa at George’s Dock.
Savoury Cocktails
The savoury girl movement is all over the internet. It is all about pickles, blue cheese and oysters galore. The next step in this savoury shift is to saltify your cocktails. Super briny, smoky, butter washed and packed with flavours of tomato, herbs, umami, the possibilities are endless. The savoury tipple blurs the line between cocktail and soup. For too long the Bloody Mary has been the lone soldier of this genre of drink, so get experimenting and find a new favourite.
Fibre for Life
We are all sick of the protein revolution of the last few years. Every single item seems to have a protein version. It is important to keep your protein up of course, but we think fibre will be the new macronutrient to have everybody in a chokehold in 2026. Fibre yoghurt, fibre juice, fibre cheese, fibre soap. You will start seeing it everywhere. Well maybe not quite that far but online health enthusiasts have been ‘fibermaxxing’ recently so it is only a matter of time before the rest of us start to follow suit. Sure it is a good thing too. How many of us are actually getting the recommended 30 grams of good old fibre in our diet. It will do us a lot of good.
Murphy’s Takes the Throne
Last year we predicted a big year for Beamish, and a big year it certainly was. This year we predict Murphy’s will cement itself as the cool kids stout. It has already rocketed in popularity in the UK, and while we do not have as concrete a data set for Ireland, we can all clearly see it pulling in more and more fans and featuring on more taps around town. We anticipate it will make even bigger moves in 2026.
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