Restaurant openings and food trends to watch in 2015

What will be the biggest food trends in 2015?

More green, less stupidity. Sam Miller, former number two at Copenhagen's Noma, is opening a restaurant in Chippendale. Noma is top dog on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list, a position earned by celebrating nature's bounty and putting local produce centre stage. Miller's still-to-be-named restaurant will join the likes of Yellow, Quay, Biota and even tiny Forest Lodge cafe In the Annex, which will continue to celebrate vegetables as more than side dish.

We'll also see more restaurants forage a leaf from the book of these joints by not doing anything stupid to ingredients. That locally sourced lamb/steak/duck/pea/zucchini is already fantastic - don't ruin it with some mango-infused cherry reduction nonsense.

What will reach saturation point?
Craft beer. Sick of hearing chubby nerds in chinos bang on about the banana and caramel notes of a pale ale? You're not the only one. Craft beer can be awesome, but at the end of the day it's just beer and a VB will be fine, thanks. Also there's only so many food bloggers the world can take. Eat it, don't tweet it.

What will take its last breath?
The garnish for visual effect. All chefs will come round to realising that if something's on the plate for aesthetics only, it doesn't need to be there. It's a waste of food and a waste of space. It would be nice to make a similar prediction about "the smear", but we're a couple of years off that.

What will be the best restaurant opening?
There's a British bloke named Heston opening a six-month pop-up in Melbourne that will probably be pretty good. You might have heard about it. Closer to home, Quay-master Peter Gilmore takes over Bennelong at the Opera House in June. The new-look Bennelong will feature the full cream-and-crunch Gilmore dining experience, a casual restaurant/bar for a pre-theatre pinot and a cultured-and-cured section that could end up being the best place to eat an oyster in the world (this is not an exaggeration).

What would you like to see?
How are these restaurants that claim to use locally sourced produce whenever possible and then have a wine list that features little to no NSW plonk? The hypocrisy is ridiculous and needs to stop. NSW wine is bloody good stuff.