/
1x
Advertisement
Proudly Canadian, obsessively Toronto. Subscribe to Toronto Life!
Food & Drink

Tracking Toronto food trends, courtesy of Yelp

By Caroline Youdan
Copy link
taco-ramen

Earlier this month, Yelp celebrated its tenth anniversary by doing something mildly useful with its massive accumulation of user-generated data. The result is Yelp Trends, a standalone site that generates pretty colour-coded graphs tracking the relative incidence of different keywords in Yelp reviews over time. The tool can be used to track trends in 98 cities around the world, including Toronto. Users just pick the city and enter the keywords; the site does the rest.

So, what do multiple years’ worth of reports from disgruntled diners tell us about Toronto food trends? Quite a bit, actually, although the results aren’t enormously surprising. The word “taco,” for instance, really began to take off in late 2011—right around the time Grand Electric opened for business—and it’s been consistently popular ever since. So has “ramen,” which predictably peaked when Momofuku came to town in 2012. Read on for seven more Toronto trend reports.

Tracking Toronto food trends, courtesy of Yelp

After a huge popularity spike earlier this year, craft beer’s heyday appears to be ending. Could a cider comeback be on the horizon? (Some sources would say yes: according to this recent report, LCBO cider sales are booming.)

Tracking Toronto food trends, courtesy of Yelp

The gluten obsession feels sort of new, but Yelpers have apparently been yammering about it since ‘09. Maybe they’re just getting louder?

Tracking Toronto food trends, courtesy of Yelp

The reign of the stiff brown cocktail has come to a close. So far, there doesn’t appear to be an obvious successor.

Tracking Toronto food trends, courtesy of Yelp

Despite everything, pork is still the other white meat.

Tracking Toronto food trends, courtesy of Yelp

It would seem that cauliflower is not, in fact, the new kale.

Tracking Toronto food trends, courtesy of Yelp

And then there’s burgers and pizza, which seem destined to remain locked in a dead heat for all time.

NEVER MISS A TORONTO LIFE STORY

Sign up for Table Talk, our free newsletter with essential food and drink stories.

By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.
You may unsubscribe at any time.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Advertisement
Advertisement

Big Stories

Trump's Loss, Toronto's Gain: Meet the artists, professors, scientists and other luminaries ditching the US and moving north
Deep Dives

Trump’s Loss, Toronto’s Gain: Meet the artists, professors, scientists and other luminaries ditching the US and moving north

Inside the Latest Issue

The May issue of Toronto Life features the artists, professors, scientists and other luminaries moving north to avoid the carnage of Trump. Plus, our obsessive coverage of everything that matters now in the city.