By Céline Cabourg
Visions is a series of forward-looking articles that explores the world of tomorrow — its contours, models, and challenges. Through the eyes of experts from various fields, the Visions series undertakes an exploration of our societies, adopting multiple viewpoints to address several questions: How can we imagine the future today? What emerging trends or subtle signals should we pay attention to identify and anticipate new models and ways of living, creating, producing, and consuming? By gathering observations, analyses, and future-oriented insights in fields ranging from multidisciplinary creation to economics, sustainability, and new technologies, Première Vision aims to inform, inspire and provide key resources for creative Fashion professionals.
The restaurant as a gastronomic unity of place has served as the stage for a profound societal revolution that has spread to all areas of creation, from fashion to cosmetics and accessories. This deep-rooted trend, based on reconnecting with the earth, materials, and well-being, will continue to shape the coming decades.
Luc Dubanchet, a former radio journalist who went on to make his mark as editor-in-chief of the influential restaurant guide Gault & Millau before founding the French culinary group Omnivore in 2003, now heads the Sirha Food Division at GL events. For Dubanchet, framing the restaurant as a unity of place is key to understanding the evolution of cuisine in recent years as a space that, like a boutique or a gallery, is both a meeting place and a business.
The end of a paradox
The separation of the land
Dubanchet pinpoints a major turning point in the mid-20th century. “From 1945 onwards, the rise of the restaurant industry and the increasing media focus on chefs —what we now call ‘Food’— happened alongside the decline of traditional farming,” he explains. “The more the restaurant industry moved toward a bourgeois model that emphasizes the value of ingredients in its discourse, the more food production became automated, leading to a decline in the quality of agricultural products.” This paradox laid the foundation for both the bourgeois restaurant and the Nouvelle Cuisine movement of the 1970s, reshaped by Henri Gault, Christian Millau, and contemporary culinary icons like Michel Guérard, the Troisgros brothers, Alain Senderens, and Paul Bocuse. In parallel, the post-war era also saw the rise of chemical use in agriculture to eradicate pests and bacteria, all in the pursuit of higher yields.
Towards reconnection
The pushback against this disconnect began in the early 2000s, after the first Mad Cow Disease crises.
A new wave of culinary professionals and food lovers sought to restore the connection between restaurants and agricultural production. For almost 40 years before that, the direct link between the land and the plate, in a sense, had been overlooked.
Some 20 years on, a similar shift is now happening in the textile industry. In the 1960s, the rise of ready-to-wear fashion led to the outsourcing of production chains beyond national borders. The increase in production volumes led to the delocalization of many stages, with a shift toward synthetic fibers instead of a reliance on natural materials. The post-COVID era has heightened awareness among industry players that new and (improved) methods of production must be developed.
What triggered this turning point?
"We're experiencing a reversal because food has become a cultural object," observes Dubanchet. “A new generation of foodies has gathered around culinary practices, chefs, and the suppliers they have brought along with them. It has evolved into a major phenomenon, no longer just a leisure activity. Eating is now a powerful act, full of meaning and signals. This reflects how restaurants have evolved, moving beyond their bourgeois status to become open, intergenerational hubs of connection and exchange.”
A revolution in eating
This shift in the culinary world is transforming the entire sector. It is no longer just about Michelin-starred dining but about a more open, accessible, and affordable restaurant scene, bistros, neo-bistros, and even casual snacking. The ‘new’ restaurant model reaches a much broader audience, spanning urban, rural, and suburban areas, and within it a "cultural and agricultural re-centering" has emerged. Driving this transformation is the thirty-something generation—the grandchildren of the baby boomers—who have championed this movement. “With them, the modern diner, the 21st-century restaurant-goer, has taken on a pivotal role,” notes the CEO of Sirha Food, labeling it political.
Food’s new role as a driving force in shaping awareness and behavior
Food, leading the way in vigilance
The reconnected diner, who is more in tune with nature, is naturally starting to question all aspects of daily life, including the origins, materials, and production conditions of what they consume. With fashion lagging behind, Dubanchet offers a simple explanation: "You wear clothes, but you ingest food." Behind what we consider ‘good’ food are deeper questions about health, respecting the cold chain, and whether the food we eat is doing us good, or harm. Thanks to advances in research, we now know that overconsumption of processed foods, preservatives, and emulsifiers like E100 is harmful to health. This new awareness around food is opening up much bigger questions about how we live and what we consume.
Understanding traceability
Historically, we know how we arrived at this point. In the early 20th century, local sourcing was the norm, primarily due to the limited development of transportation networks. Paris was surrounded by vegetable farms until the 1960s. As farming techniques modernized and the need to feed the country grew, farmers transitioned from polycultures to monocultures, increasing production volumes along the way. “When it comes to the restaurant as a unity of place, it wasn’t until the 2000s that chefs started paying attention to their suppliers' profiles, not just their distributors," explains the person who toured them for Omnivore during those years. "In the first guide we created in 2003, we asked restaurateurs to list three or four suppliers because I realized they didn’t even know who they were before. The distributors themselves did a tremendous amount of work in understanding the production networks and traceability."
A new approach to creation for both food and fashion
The profile of the key players in various ecosystems has also changed. In the 2000s, a new generation of chefsmade the reconnection with the land possible.
"For many years, the creative geniuses were far removed from the source. This is true in both food and fashion. We wanted the best, no matter the cost, whether in production, carbon footprint, human labor, water usage, or how many miles things traveled. It was a world of temperamental creators."
In both fashion and food, Italy was one of the first countries to recognize the need to preserve this connection. In the 1980s, Italy launched the slow-food movement, which helped safeguard the country’s agricultural structures and deeply influenced chefs and restaurants.
What about tomorrow?
Don’t count on Dubanchet to envision a 2050 where we’re eating insects or synthetic food. He doesn’t buy into those kinds of dystopian ideas.
A new way of living: less, but better
The global concept of "less, but better" is set to continue growing in the future, according to Dubanchet, who observes an increasing number of appealing proposals emerging at trade shows.
Less meat and more vegetables, less meat but better-quality meat, a more informed choice regarding traceability, portion control, and the increasing number of plant-based options on the menu.
Looking at society as a whole, the growing importance of sports in our daily lives will further drive this awareness and the desire to improve well-being.
Sport and fitness
"All you have to do is look at the number of people taking up running, the growing popularity of trail running, and the rising demand for dietary supplements. While sports brands have led the way in terms of innovation, comfort, and technology, everyday athletes are paying more and more attention to their diet. The reclaiming of the body through sport is accompanied by a new dietary trend, one of less saturated fat, less sugar, fewer sodas, and a greater focus on plant-based foods".
People aged 25 to 30 are drinking less alcohol, and spirits sellers are recognizing this as a deep-rooted trend.
This new way of living is leading to the creation of new products. We can see it with the global development of alcohol-free drinks. “This doesn’t mean we stop drinking wine or going out to restaurants,” adds Dubanchet, “but we are making different choices. Originating in Italy and France, natural wine with reduced additives is disrupting the French wine industry. The typical consumer of the 1960s didn’t participate in competitive sports the following day.”
So what does the future hold for AI? By easing daily work in the fields and enabling better management of farms and crop yields, the influence of AI will continue to grow. It will help reduce the physical strain of certain tasks and allow for more accurate predictions on soil preservation, bacterial life, and soil pH levels.
Material: a new sign of Beauty
On a broader scale, we are witnessing a true revolution in the criteria of beauty.
“Raw has become beautiful, texture and thickness are now considered aesthetic”.In the textile industry, these characteristics carry over to the handle, density, and irregularities of natural materials such as hemp, linen, and wool. “We’ve shifted from the 2000s, where everything was pulverized and liquid, and food resembled puddles, to more composite, structured plates, where food turns into landscapes that can be photographed," he adds.
The revolution of returning to the land is such a structural movement that it will likely gain momentum, evolving over at least the next 30 years. Introducing a new approach to soil and new ways of production and distribution, the shift is significant, despite opposing forces such as wars and inflation, momentarily pushing environmental concerns aside. Concludes Dubanchet:
“Before opening new doors, we must continue focusing on the how, the why, and the reconnection. This will take at least two generations.”
