Halloween- the night celebrated on the 31st of October and widely popular in western culture is making its way to India, with kids dressing up in various costumes especially spooky ones, to go trick-or-treating, which tends to bring in the means for a wide range of food and beverages in its most mysterious form.
Mahesh Padala, Cluster Director of Food and Beverage at Sheraton Hyderabad Hotel articulates “Halloween the festival has gained much popularity in India over the last decade. It is mostly the youth and teens who play an active role in driving this trend. It is a fun event and hotels, especially international chains have participated to offer people a venue to gather in and enjoy playful food and beverage offerings with their family and friends.”
The hotels and restaurants as well see it as a great prospect to attract guests, to try on a wide range of cuisine in its most spooky form and variation. Vast Food and Beverage offerings (buffet) have been designed in the Halloween theme. Rishi Mehra, Director of Food & Beverage, The Westin Pune Koregaon Park explains “The vast menu offers Phoenix Wings, Calamari Devil’s Rings and Ghouls Scales made with Spinach and Pok Choi. Other top picks are Witches Stew, Tofu Brains, Burnt Witches Hair and the classic Braised Pork, Hell Hound Belly. The entire dessert counter offers desserts in scary shapes and mouthwatering cocktails decked up in the theme.”
With the ever-changing trends in gastronomy, restaurants have a crucial role to play with an opportunity to promote analytically grafted food in the most terrifying appearance. To render a delicious yet deadly meal to savor. Manish Kumar Yadav, Food and Beverage Manager, Courtyard by Marriott, Agra emphasizes “With consumption habits evolving across the world, we have witnessed a gastronomic trend which is related to the general awareness about the effects of consumption on environment. With healthy eating and healthy lifestyle becoming a fundamental change, we at Courtyard By Marriott, Agra have also limited ourselves from consumption of processed food and with additives. Halloween food consisting of chocolate bars, gummies will entirely be made through local ingredients. Our focus will also remain on anti-oxidant foods and other savoury dishes because of their rich nutritional value. While the names might sound spooky and ugly however, it will promote sustainability and reduction in waste.”
Halloween season similarly brings in a vein for a lot of dancing and jiving to music, with everyone dressed up in remarkable costumes to come together and have a deadly celebration. This has given an immense opening to the hospitality chains to host vivid and vibrant Halloween dance parties. Sohrab J Parakh, Director of Marketing at W Goa explains ” This year, we have collaborated with Sunburn to host a weekend of transcending beats with headlining acts by KILL THE CLOWN & MOJI on 29th & 30th of October respectively. Apart from the gigs, we also have a few of our staff dressed up with like scary clowns and other different Halloween mascots. There will also be Halloween-themed décor at the hotel throughout the Halloween weekend. At W Goa, we don’t celebrate Halloween just for a day but for the entire weekend i.e. from 29th to 31st October 2022.”
