The unstoppable rise of hot honey: Are food trends making UK restaurant menus all the same?

The first time I encountered “hot honey” was around two and a half years ago – though I believe they were calling it “chilli honey” at the time. It was at one of those hip London pizza places: all hand-stretched sourdough bases, “authentic” Neapolitan toppings, and a huge, flame-heated oven into which chefs deftly inserted and extracted discs bubbling with freshly torn mozzarella in a graceful, non-stop dance. The laidback decor brought to mind Brooklyn, rather than Italy; the reasonably priced wine-by-the-glass was predictably served in tumblers for extra cool points.

“Chilli honey?” I exclaimed, incredulous. “What the heck is that?” My considerably-more-sophisticated-than-I boyfriend at the time enlightened me. It was – duh – honey infused with chilli, perfect for drizzling across your pizza or for dipping bland crusts into for a dash of zingy sweetness. As one of the establishment’s specialities, hot honey distinguished it from the hundreds of other similar joints across the capital. Sold.

I ordered accordingly, and was delighted by the innovative, spicy-sweet flavour profile. Yes, I was adding liquid sugar to an already highly calorific meal, and rotting my teeth into the bargain – but so what? It was a one-off, an almost-never-to-be-repeated treat. Or so I thought.

It took another year for hot honey to migrate outside London to the Kentish town where I live (an independent pizza restaurant started listing it alongside the equally bougie “dipper” options of parmesan mayo and truffle aioli). Another 18 months on, and hot honey has gone from lesser-spotted curiosity, rarely observed in the wild, to an ingredient so ubiquitous that the Co-op is now selling an oven pizza doused in the stuff. I’ve seen it served in countless restaurants; no longer confined to pizza, it might be glazing your fried chicken, salmon steak or salad, jazzing up your crispy-bacon-topped breakfast pancakes, or even injecting your cocktail with some extra oomph.

“Hot honey products have been on the market for some time, but it’s really only hit the mainstream in the last five years or so,” agrees Lisa Harris, from Harris and Hayes food and drink consultancy. “It’s appearing on ice cream, baked goods, and across meat and plant-based innovations, too.”

Google Trends reveals that searches for “hot honey” are the highest they’ve ever been in the UK, with interest in the term steadily climbing over the past five years. Like many of our biggest dining trends, the concept was first popularised in New York – though it didn’t originate there. Honey infused with chilli peppers has been used in Brazil for centuries, in both cooking and medicine. An American college student, Mike Kurtz, came across it in 2003 while studying in Bahia, and was wowed enough to start experimenting with his own recipe when he returned home. Starting small, Kurtz gifted his creation to friends and family, before founding Mike’s Hot Honey in 2010 and selling bottles off the bar at Paulie Gee’s in (where else) NYC hipster-haven Brooklyn.

Cut to 2024, and Mike’s Hot Honey is a cult favourite and the leading spiced-honey brand in the United States, though plenty of competitors have sprung up in its wake: JD’s Hot Honey, Piggy’s Hot Honey, Melinda’s Hot Honey, Wilderbee Hot Honey, Hilltop Hot Honey, Dr Sting’s Hot Honey, Hot Star Honey... The list goes on. And on. And on. Even Goliath brand Rowse is now selling its own version, while a Reddit thread popped up in January asking: “What’s the deal with hot honey? I feel like out of nowhere it’s in every fourth food video I see, often unexpectedly added at the end (eg ‘serve with hot honey’). Is it a new thing? Did something happen to make it suddenly more popular?”

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Its current popularity is rooted in the wider cultural landscape, according to the experts. “Unexpected flavour combinations are especially popular at the moment, as consumers are seeking playful taste sensations as a form of escapism,” says Harris. “The cost-of-living crisis means consumers want affordable ways to make everyday ingredients feel more exciting. It also taps into the personalisation trend – consumers want simple ways to personalise food and ‘make it mine’.”

Charles Banks, co-founder and director of food trends agency The Food People, also reckons these more “experimental” flavour combinations have grown in popularity post-pandemic. “During Covid, the repertoire of cuisines that people were eating was much smaller,” he tells me. “Everyone was really searching out comfort, nostalgia and familiarity in their food, but now that’s been left behind and we can make the space for something a little bit more interesting and experiment a little bit more.” He cites recent research from his agency, which found that consumers are, on average, eating one more different type of cuisine per month than they were a year ago.

Hot honey is also having its “moment” amid a bigger movement that’s seen diners embrace sweet and salty (known as “swalty”), sweet and savoury (“swavery”) and sweet and spicy (“swicy”) flavour combinations. “There’s been a blurring of the lines between the world of sweet and the world of savoury, coupled with the fact that we’re in a food era of permissibility, where you can break rules and challenge norms,” Banks says.

But what elusive combination of marketing and alchemy meant that 2024 was the year that the condiment fully entered the mainstream in the UK? Although trends often feel like they’ve come out of nowhere, “it’s more like a snowball effect”, says Harris. “Combining chilli with sweet ingredients is an ancient practice, but the trend has taken off in contemporary culture because a challenger brand (Mike’s) has been putting in the hard work for a long time. It catches the eye of the right person, hits a cultural zeitgeist and bigger consumer drivers (like personalisation, taste escapism, elevated at-home experiences), bounces onto social media, and then snowballs from there.” Social media, in turn, “helps trends spread at lightning speed” – but its echo-chamber effect “can be misleading. It feels like a trend is ‘everywhere’ when it’s really only rebounding around the same social groups and demographics.”

Hot honey has also benefited from its attachment to dishes that have a strong social and cultural identity, says Banks – pizza being one, fried chicken another. Mainstream brands in those established spaces can be bold and take chances, looking to independent, entrepreneurial brands for inspiration and innovation: “That’s how something like hot honey can leap into the more mainstream space.”

There’s nothing wrong, per se, with this stratospheric rise in popularity over the last 12 months. Trends are inevitable; once restaurants and supermarkets clock that a product sells, they’re bound to jump on the bandwagon and give customers what they want. That’s how capitalism works, after all: demand is created and the market supplies. What’s disheartening is the way in which these sudden “success stories” can sometimes flatten the UK’s food scene, becoming the default to such an extent that restaurant menus up and down the country start to feel bleakly homogenous and interchangeable.

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Avocado on toast is perhaps the epitome of this phenomenon – in the past decade, it’s gone from being a specialised item inspired by the Australian brunch scene, only on offer at select eateries, to a non-negotiable staple. Order it, and you could be not just almost anywhere in the country, but almost anywhere in the world. The same is true of brioche burger buns: too sweet and not robust enough for some tastes, they’ve nevertheless completely taken over. In much the same way that the proliferation of grey squirrels pushed the UK’s native red species to the brink of extinction, regular baps have been relegated to a relic of the past – something you might stumble across at an older relative’s barbecue, prompting a wave of nostalgia.

Then there’s salted caramel (such a success story that its non-salted predecessor no longer gets a look in); smash burgers (skinny patties that have muscled out regular burgers); sourdough toast and pizza (whatever happened to regular dough?); tenderstem broccoli (standard broccoli having apparently fallen out of favour with every chef working in Britain today); halloumi and truffle with absolutely everything; and “pumpkin spice” as its own distinct food group.

It’s a problem that has even spread to supermarkets: peruse the dips at my local Tesco and you’ll find that, rather than a range of options to suit varying tastes, there are shelves upon shelves dedicated to 20 different types of humous. Which, incidentally, I no longer like – I was served so much flavoured chickpea mush in the 2010s, when it took over the world, that I got completely sick of it. I can already see the same potential fate awaiting my relationship with hot honey. Having gorged myself stupid, entranced by its initial novelty, I’ll come to dread the telltale glimmer denoting that my dinner’s been drenched in sickly stickiness. One whiff and I’ll likely feel a burst of nausea (and a toothache coming on).

But Banks argues that the dominance of these trends – which, yes, can end up feeling a little passé – is instrumental in laying the groundwork for more exotic ideas and experimentation becoming accessible to enquiring palates. He gives the all-pervasive salted caramel as an example. First developed in Brittany in the early 1900s, it was then popularised by Starbucks.

“What that has done is pave the way for more sensory flavour combinations, designed around those receptors on your tongue that really elevate the sweet experience,” he says. “Brioche buns paved the way for other burger carriers, whether that’s wraps or different types of buns; we’ve seen burgers in noodles, and rice patties, and all sorts of different things.” Compared with even 20 years ago, he adds, consumers are looking “for so much more from our food, without even thinking about health and nutrients and sustainability – just from a flavour and experiential point of view. We’re more demanding. We’re looking for more.”

While it’s easy to judge – and while I’m already feeling vaguely like I’m over the newest condiment on the block – hot honey is clearly part of a much wider evolution of food that’s about more than what’s currently on my plate. And if one thing’s for certain, it’s that another “Next Big Thing” trend will be just around the corner. “Social media and the pace of consumption mean that trend cycles are quicker and more hyper-focused than ever, often rooted in nostalgia and clinging to contexts that don’t even exist any more,” advises Harris. “Hot honey is big right now, but there will be something else hot on its heels tomorrow.”

So maybe I should shut up, tuck in – and just be grateful I’m finally being served a dip that’s not hummus.