1. Gelato
Lining up for the on-trend dessert of choice, gelato, has become an acceptable practice in Sydney. And 2014 was a year of empire expansion of crowd favourite gelato chains. Messina popped up in Miranda and Parramatta and introduced a DIY-dessert bar in Darlinghurst. N2 Extreme Gelato ventured into froyo territory, opening a store on Newtown's King Street.
Family-run Enmore based Cow and Moon took out the Gelato World Tour title in Rimini, Italy. With the award came lines 100 people long outside their door.
2. Vietnamese pork rolls
Whether it's Marrickville, Mascot, Cabramatta or Sydney's CBD, the question of where to source Sydney's best pork roll remains. The Vietnamese pork roll - or banh mi thit – traditionally incorporates at least 10 ingredients on a crispy French baguette for a lunch that's cheap, tasty, and in high demand.
3. Coffee
Queuing for coffee is nothing new, but in 2014 caffeine-fuelled Sydneysiders embraced the year of the cold drip. Scientific beakers decorated trendy cafes and bars alike, infusing coffee with cold or room-temperature water for between 3 and 24 hours, producing a liquid that's strong in flavour and sweet in taste.
4. Dumplings
Whether it's at lunchtime, dinner, the end of a big night, or, for some breakfast, dumplings remained a popular choice in 2014. Sydney's growing branches of the Taiwanese franchise (and dumpling institution) Ding Tai Fung have earned a cult following who can be found queuing up at the World Square store when the sun goes down.
5. Cronuts
When McCafe started stocking macarons we knew it was time for the next dessert sensation. And in came the cronut. The donut-croissant fusion was dreamt up by New York pastry chef Dominique Ansel, and has been emulated and adapted by Sydney pastry chefs since mid 2013. Adriano Zumbo's 'zonut', an interpretation of the classic cronut, manifests as a new flavour every week and has earned a following of its own.
6. Fast food
Food trends come and go but our love for fast food remains. Australians make 51.5 million visits to fast food restaurants every month, according to an Enhanced Media Metrics Australia's report on our eating habits, released earlier this year. McDonald's took the cake as the nation's fast food restaurant of choice, according to the report which labelled Australia as "truly a fast food nation".
