From Montreal’s rotisserie revival and London’s pizza queues to plant-forward fine dining in northern Europe and wine lists reinvented by the glass: a new generation of operators is rewriting the restaurant playbook.
The economics are brutal and well documented. Utility costs up more than 50% since 2019 in the UK alone. Olive oil up 121%. Chocolate prices doubled. Meanwhile, consumers are pulling back: over half of UK shoppers have cut non-essential spending, with eating out consistently among the first casualties. The same cost pressures squeezing operators are squeezing the customers they need to survive.
And yet. Step into the right restaurant in London, Brussels, or Montreal, and something unexpected is happening. Operators under maximum pressure are producing some of the most creative food formats in decades. New models are emerging, not as luxury experiments, but as genuine commercial responses to a changed landscape. Here are 4 to watch.
Highlights
London: pizza format proliferation signals a wider shift toward affordable, high-margin formats with strong social media currency.
Wine by the glass: preservation technology has transformed BTG programmes from an afterthought into a revenue and experience driver.
Northern Europe: plant-forward fine dining is moving from niche philosophy to commercial mainstream, with proven economics.
Montreal: heritage formats are being reimagined by leading chefs, and winning on value, culture, and storytelling simultaneously.
London
The pizza Economy & What It Means
A2D INSIGHT: When a format delivers high margins, fast table turns, and strong social media visibility simultaneously, it spreads fast. Pizza’s proliferation in London tells food retail teams something important about where consumer spending is going.
London is in the grip of a pizza obsession. In Mayfair, people have been queuing up to five hours for Crisp Pizza. Across the capital, a wave of new operators — NYC-style, Detroit deep-dish, sourdough-led — has opened in under a year.
This isn’t coincidence. It’s economics. Pizza is cheap to produce, carries high margins even with premium toppings, turns tables fast, and photographs exceptionally well. The significant signal: normative chains are struggling while independents built around craft credentials and format differentiation are thriving. The product hasn’t changed. The frame around it has.
Consumer appetite for “affordable with a story” is reshaping both ends of the food industry. For retail teams, the parallel with private label quality tiers and food-to-go category premiumisation is direct.
New York & London
Wine by the Glass: The New Revenue Model
A2D INSIGHT: Preservation technology has transformed by-the-glass wine programmes into experience drivers. The lesson for food retail: when the barrier to trial collapses, category penetration expands.
More consumers than ever are choosing individual glasses over shared bottles, driven by health-consciousness, price sensitivity, and reluctance to compromise on variety. The enabler is technology: systems like Coravin allow serious, cellar-worthy pours without oxidation risk.
In New York, Chambers wine bar built its BTG programme after noting a decline in bottle orders. It now offers 20-25 special pours — aged cru Barolo, 1950s Vouvray — at $70 a glass, alongside 30+ regular options. In London, Row on 5 lists over 100 wines by the glass including a Domaine de la Romanée-Conti at £200 for 50ml. Vagabond’s new Soho flagship opens this summer with 120+ self-pour wines across three measure sizes.
The retail parallel: smaller serve sizes, better quality at entry level, and technology-enabled freshness expand the total category. Reducing commitment drives volume.
Netherlands, Germany & Belgium
Plant-Forward Goes Commercial
A2D INSIGHT: Plant-forward fine dining is no longer a philosophical position: it is proving its commercial logic with younger clientele, lower input costs, and full reservation books.
The We’re Smart World guide’s 2025 Discovery of the Year awards named three restaurants redefining plant-led cooking at fine dining level. All three operate with clear commercial discipline.
At Herberg onder de Linden in Aduard, Netherlands, chef Steven Klein Nijenhuis replaced expensive imported luxury ingredients with hyper-local Wadden Sea sourcing. More than half of guests now choose the pure plant menu. Margins improved; clientele skewed younger. At Restaurant Louis in Saarlouis, Germany, chef Sebastian Sandor lists plant and omnivore dishes side by side without labelling either — guests simply choose what sounds best. In Brussels, Entropy moved to 100% plant in 2024, with profits funding a social non-profit.
All three are bookable and within a few hours of each other. A focused northern European program could cover all three in three days.
Montreal
Heritage Formats, Reimagined
A2D INSIGHT: Authenticity, value, and storytelling can outperform novelty in a cost-pressured market. Rôtisserie La Lune is the proof.
In December 2024, Marc-Olivier Frappier — whose restaurant Mon Lapin topped Canada’s best restaurant lists two years running — opened Rôtisserie La Lune. It serves roast chicken, fries, coleslaw, and gravy. A half chicken for two costs 37 Canadian dollars.
Quebec’s rotisserie culture runs deep: Chalet Bar-B-Q has been cooking over charcoal since 1944; St-Hubert defined postwar Quebecois dining. Portuguese immigrants added piri piri and pastel de nata, creating a style unique to the city. Frappier’s version brings fine dining craft to the format without abandoning its accessibility. The kitchen is simple. The margin is solid. The cultural story is inexhaustible.
For food retail teams: when format and regional identity fuse completely, the differentiation requires no marketing spend. It already exists.
What The Market is Telling You
The restaurants making commercial sense right now share common characteristics: lower kitchen complexity, clearer provenance stories, formats that travel well on social media, and pricing that meets consumers where budgets actually are.
Three lessons stand out:
- Affordable formats with strong cultural roots outperform novelty: Montreal’s rotisserie, London’s pizza, and Brussels’ plant menus all prove this.
- Reducing commitment drives trial: smaller wine serves demonstrate that when customers can try small, total spend often rises.
- Plant-forward is a commercial proposition now: northern Europe’s leading plant-led kitchens are younger, leaner, and increasingly full.
Ready to see these operations in person? A2D designs bespoke research programs connecting food retail professionals with the operators, chefs, and suppliers driving the next wave of food innovation.
