Canadians love food, and we can thank influences from many places for sharing the exquisite tastes of their cuisines with us. Restaurants have become a big business in Canada, with sales increasing 6.3 percent in 2016, bringing in $80 billion in revenue. Food is now photographed as much as famous landmarks and shared on social media. One major source of our increasing culinary landscape is Los Angeles.Some of the prettiest and most delicious new dishes on the market come from L.A. With the help of Discover Los Angeles, we have uncovered three of the most popular and tasty food trends that have traveled from their sunny climes to Toronto:
1. Veggies as main courses. Many L.A. chefs have changed menus to feature vegetables as the star, with meat as the side dish.
2. Food halls. L.A.’s Grand Central Market, a model for the food hall trend, just celebrated its 100th anniversary. Toronto just welcomed CAMPO, a Spanish style food hall, this weekend, and five more are set to open in the next few years.
3. Gourmet tacos. Toronto has followed L.A.’s authentic taco scene, with taco hotspots such as Grand Electric growing by the day.
Other L.A. food trends will be in Canada sooner than we realize: influences from Nordic cuisines, re-imagined Mexican dishes, South American Chifa; spices such as za’atar, Kampot pepper, and Vadouvan; savory courses with dessert flavors; plant based protein; vegan/nut based spreads, pop ups and takeovers; sipping veggies for green intake; coffee cocktails; Scandinavian spirits and flavors; sour beers, Japanese whisky, and small batch production of wines.