It's all treats and no tricks on a Halloween menu, whether you go for full blood-spattered effect or a nod to autumn flavours
Retail sales suggest that Halloween is vying with Valentine's Day and moving towards eclipsing Easter as one of the top three UK seasonal fixtures.
Retailers from Fortnum & Mason to Poundland get ready early for 31 October, with decorations appearing in the shops as early as July. But while the Starbucks pumpkin latte always shows up in September, Halloween still has plenty of growing room in foodservice and hospitality. From themed menus to decorations and special promotions, it is a golden opportunity to add value to the dining experience and entertain your diners, whether you create tweaks to your current dishes or go full-on with headless waiters leaping out of coffins. As the big day creeps closer, now is the perfect time for restaurants to brainstorm a plan of attack.
Bringing movie magic to the dinner table
Barbenheimer is set to be big this year, with Barbie and Ken outfits a popular choice, according to fashion chain Boohoo, or there's always the traditional options of witches, vampires and zombies. Fabien Levet, commercial manager at Pidy UK, says: "Brits have proven time and time again that they love nothing more than a themed menu – be that Harry Potter-inspired mixology, an Alice in Wonderland afternoon tea, or Lord of the Rings food marathons. When it comes to Halloween, the possibilities are endless."
The Insights Lab development agency at trends analyst Egg Soldiers highlights Southeast Asian cuisine with mala spice, and the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead) which falls around Halloween, as areas operators should focus on.
"Ube, the Filipino root vegetable, delivers vibrant purple colours and sweet nutty flavours – perfect for an eye-catching Halloween dessert special," says Kateline Porritt, Insights Lab's head of trends. Sichuan peppercorns or mala can deliver a tingling sensation that numbs the mouth: "Imagine a Halloween-themed cocktail with a glass rim dusted with mala – that's a pain-meets-pleasure experience to remember," she adds.
The Day of the Dead falls on 2 November and celebrates the deceased with a colourful carnival. Themed restaurant specials will allow foodservice operators to extend the Halloween season with Mexican-inspired offerings such as pan de muerto (bread of the dead) and tamales, a traditional Mexican street food wrap, suggests Porritt.
For operators looking to join in the seasonal festivities without going overboard, existing menus and dishes can be spookified with a few tweaks. Tom Styman-Heighton, development chef at Funnybones Foodservice, suggests repurposing hot dogs as severed fingers: "Serve a hotdog scored halfway and, near one end, stick a small oval of onion to resemble a fingernail. Splatter ketchup on the bun at the other end of the hotdog for a severed effect. Salsa is another good way to create bloody effects for Mexican-style dishes."
For dessert, partially melted marshmallow stretched over other desserts creates sticky cobwebs, he suggests.
Simple fishfingers can also be given a gruesome twist, says Joel Carr, development chef at Young's Foodservice. "Create some hocus pocus with Young's Foodservice' wicked witch (fish) fingers dipped in blood red ketchup served in a bizarre brioche roll with a petrifying pepper face," he urges.
Vocabulary is all-important around Halloween menus and changing the names of dishes helps get diners into the Halloween spirit. Ditch ‘guacamole ' for ‘Zombie guts' or nreame your speciality cocktail for the season, suggests Styman-Heighton.
Add a touch of colour to Halloween tricks and treats
If turning your premises into a Halloween house of horrors is all a bit too theatrical, there are plenty of other ways to make simple but impactful changes to the menu. Swap out traditional yellow corn or flour tortillas with a visually striking blue corn tortilla, Styman-Heighton suggests. Levet says Pidy's vegan-friendly cups in spinach, carrot and beetroot flavours (in green, orange and purple) for a Halloween-themed afternoon tea cake stand, or served as a decorative appetiser or canapé.
Pidy's mini black carbon cones can double up as witches' hats if they are filled and turned upside down, and chocolate pastry bases are perfect for preparing classic tarts, filled as required and topped with Halloween decorations or spooky designs.
Samantha Rain, development chef at ingredients supplier Henley Bridge, says ready-made decorations can be easily added to desserts: "Ready-made chocolate décor offers an ideal way to turn ordinary bakes into Halloween-themed bakes with ease. Décor pieces include chocolate bats, pumpkins and ghouls."
Sosa beetroot powder is another natural product that adds colour and flavour to sweet and savoury bakes and is perfect for blood-curdling Halloween creations, she says.
Seasonal flavours such as pumpkin, apple and toffee also convey the autumnal theme, and any leftover stocks can later be thriftily re-purposed for Christmas.
Halloween is also the perfect time to dial up the flavours of spices associated with autumn, such as cinnamon and nutmeg, Jacqui Passmore, marketing manager UK and Ireland at Dawn suggests: "While Halloween is a profitable seasonal event, it is also a short window of opportunity, so it is important to be creative. Dawn's advice, particularly in the current economic climate, is to keep it simple by putting a Halloween twist on bakes you may already offer on the menu rather than sourcing new products and ingredients."
She suggests that ingredients from Dawn's authentic American range can be used for ideas such as Spooky Eye Blondies – a Blondie square topped with orange coloured icing and decorated with a spooky ‘eye'.
Another idea for operators wanting to gently capitalise on the Halloween theme is a scary cheese board, suggests Marie-Laure Martin, international communications director at French dairy organisation the Centre National Interprofessionnel de l'Economie Laitière (CNIEL).
"Not only will this enable you to upsell something already on the menu, but your guests will be grateful that you helped them discover delicious cheeses that they may not otherwise have tried," she says. Some ideas for French cheeses that make the grade for Halloween are Vieux-Boulogne, which was once picked as the smelliest cheese in the world in a scientific taste test, with an aroma of rotten leeks and the farmyard. Pungent Munster d'Alsace has an orange-pink rind and the perfect name for the season, and it is illegal to carry Époisses de Bourgogne on the Paris public transport system, due to its aroma, which has been likened to that of stinky feet.
Use a sense of theatre in your presentation
Whatever you arrange for Halloween, presentation is key. Add theatre to the stinky cheeseboard experience, for example, by keeping the cheeses in a glass box surrounded by a few seasonal pumpkins, suggests Martin.
And don't forget to post your ideas on social media. Spreading the word about Halloween specials will bring customers to your door and build up your reputation even after Halloween has passed. So there's no reason to be scared to jump on that bandwagon. It might just help put a smile on your customers' faces and help make your profits go bump in the night.
Horrible histories
Halloween was one of the four main festivals of the year marking the changing of the seasons. It has its roots in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (summer's end), a pagan religious celebration to welcome the harvest at the end of summer, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts.
The festival ran from the sunset of 31 October to the sunset of 1 November and fell halfway between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. The other festivals of year are Beltane, or May Day, marking the summer half of the year and starting on 1 May; Imbolg on 1 February for the start of spring; and Lughnasadh on 1 August to mark the beginning of the harvest season.
Suppliers
CNIEL (Centre National Interprofessionnel de l'Economie Laitière) www.filiere-laitiere.fr
Dawn www.dawnfoods.com/uk
Funnybones Foodservice www.funnybones.co.uk
Henley Bridge www.hbingredients.co.uk
Insights Lab by Egg Soldiers www.eggsoldiers.co.uk/insights-lab
Pidy UK www.pidy.co.uk
Young's Foodservice www.youngsfoodservice.co.uk
