The most common question I’m asked – apart from what my favourite restaurant is – relates to the latest food trends.

This year, whilst eating my way around SA to find the best restaurants, I discovered that the most prominent focus has been on ingredients: their quality, preparation, locality of source, and the celebration of the supplier. The meal on your plate is the culmination of personal relationships, from the producer right through to the chef, and then you.

Last year, some said that foraging would be short-lived – well, at least back home. However, chefs are still being creative with forgotten varieties of roots, leaves and shoots. And while simplicity on the plate is key, it is not always simple to achieve. The layering of flavours sometimes calls for crazy techniques.

Meanwhile, pop-up restaurants are putting the fun back into dining by giving chefs the creative freedom to evolve and showcase once-off dishes.

Earlier this year I was asked by Lars Peder Hedberg, the academy chairman of World 50 Best Restaurants for the region of Denmark Norway and Sweden, to be on a panel to look at what's cooking worldwide. After reading his extensive final analysis of the survey, it’s quite evident to me that foraging remains a major buzzword. Local translates into terroir cooking, with Lars saying that this keynote in today's gastronomy is taken almost to the point of a cult.

Also, many experimental chefs are returning to traditional recipes and techniques, not only for preservation, but to reinvent. Twisting grandma’s recipes into new incarnations is one of the next big trends to watch, together with the pop-up restaurant.

A genuine focus on good and exciting food is simply successful and, as I enter the final round of judging for 2011’s Eat Out DStv Food Network Restaurant Awards, I find that I have a lot to look forward to.

You do too, if you’re going to be among the first to know the winners of this year's awards. Book tickets soon for the gala dinner on Sunday 20 November at the Rotunda at the Bay Hotel – there are a limited number available to the public. See you there!

Abigail

Image: Pierneef a la Motte