LIST: Food, Drink, and Dessert Trends We Ate Up in 2025

(SPOT.ph) 2025 was a wild year when it came to food. One minute you were minding your own business, the next your algorithm has decided you needed more Dubai chocolate or a visit to this new matcha latte that's three cities away.

If you’re looking for a recap of the dishes, drinks, and dessert drops that made the biggest waves in the F&B scene (whether you tried them or just watched other people do it online), consider this our SPOT.ph-ified Wrapped.

Matcha is by no means new but was nevertheless one of the biggest food trends globally this year. The trend was so monumental that it left an alarming matcha shortage in Japan, which, of course, caused price hikes. But even with the difficulty of acquiring and having steady matcha stock, that didn't stop the matcha-focused cafes or matcha bars mushrooming left and right, plus all the new matcha items every brand launched to ride the micro-foamed, green-tinted wave.

Similar to coffee enthusiasts, matcha lovers generally fall into categories—and we're not talking about pilates princesses and performative men. Some matcha fans whisk their own matcha at home, some hunt down the best matcha spots in the city, and—unsurprisingly—there's a fairly large Venn diagram of people who do both.

With the impact of matcha, it was inevitable that the hype would spill through to hojicha. This Japanese green tea (which notably has less caffeine than matcha) has slipped into cafés, as either an alternative in this matcha drought, and for those who don't like the taste profile of matcha and want something more approachable: less bitterness, less buzz, and just enough roast to make it not taste like grass.

Now, cafés have hojicha as a menu staple. Anything you’d normally order as a matcha drink can often be swapped for hojicha, and some cafés have gone all in—rolling out hojicha-flavored desserts, pastries, and even soft-serve options.

While some coffee shops and matcha bars kept it straightforward with their menu, other cafés completely crossed over to the "coffee dessert drink" realm. In these cafés, your daily coffee or matcha fix now doubles as dessert: lattes crowned with unapologetic slabs of tiramisu or banana pudding, making it twice as decadent—and Instagrammable.

More often than not, cafés give customers all the flexibility of a Cirque du Soleil acrobat. Customers can choose between having a coffee latte or a matcha latte for its base, often iced; it's then topped with a large, square slice of banana pudding or tiramisu. It often arrives with both a spoon and a straw, with the recommended route of eating the dessert first, sipping the latte separately, then giving in halfway through and mixing the two.

Japanese hamburg, or hambagu, has been lurking quietly on some restaurants' menus for years. But 2025? It’s finally stealing the spotlight—with restaurants that don't just serve it as a meat option, but as their main speciality. The best versions of the dish focuses on the quality of the ground beef used, the method of cooking so that it retains its juiciness, and its companions: rice, egg yolk, and condiments.

This year alone, Bonifacio Global City welcomed Hamburg Yoshi (featured in our SPOT.ph 50 Great Restaurants 2025) and Hikiniku to Come, while Pasay City has Niku Niku Oh!! Kome. And if we were to predict the future, more will kome this 2026.

Warabimochi is a small dessert trend that started sometime in the latter part of 2024, but gained stronger traction in 2025. Unlike its cousin mochi, warabimochi is shiny, translucent, and bouncy, like a droplet of water you can actually eat. Traditionally, it’s coated in nutty kinako (roasted soybean powder) and finished with a drizzle of kuromitsu (brown sugar syrup), which are the two crucial ingredients that make this soft, cold, jelly-like dessert addicting.

The place to get it? Warabimochi Kamakura, which has branches at SM Megamall and at its newest branch, SM Aura. You can also get this jiggly dessert at matcha cafés like Matchanese and The Matcha Tokyo.

Summers in the Philippines are always extremely unbearable, which explains why during summer this year, everyone was rushing to the supermarket to get their hands on fruit-shaped ice cream. Enter Hong Qi Propitious Ice Creams, which are ice creams inside a realistic fruit-shaped white chocolate shell. This came in the shapes and flavors of lemon, peach, and mango.

These eye-catching treats are still available at stores like The Marketplace if you want to catch up to the trend, or just crave it on a hot day. But if you’re after more variety, local brand Konu has stepped up with its own lineup of fruit-inspired ice cream cakes, bringing even more playful options to your freezer.

Dubai chocolate (chocolate bar filled with pistachio cream, tahini, and kataifi) is the trend that refuses to die—and that's mostly thanks to Chef Nouel Catis, who has been quite busy this year, teaming up with multiple brands to push out even more Dubai chocolate–inspired desserts. There’s the SNA’AP chocolate bar created with Auro Café, limited-edition doughnuts with Krispy Kreme, and a full slate of drinks and desserts at The Matcha Tokyo.

But it didn’t stop at chef-led collabs. The Dubai chocolate obsession has officially arrived in multiple forms of cold desserts. Big dessert chains have jumped in with their own takes, from the likes of llaollao, Dairy Queen, and Selecta, to Magnum.