Diner Demographics: Asian Interests

Gen Y and Gen X are exploring the cuisines of Asia.

By Scott Hume, Editor-in-Chief -- Restaurants & Institutions, 4/1/2008

Young adults are leading the globalization of the American menu.

Chinese is the Asian cuisine that most consumers say they have tried in the past year, according to R&I’s 2008 New American Diner Study, and its popularity holds steady across nearly all demographic groups. The 81.2% of Gen Y members (ages 18 to 26) who have ordered Chinese food is not appreciably different from the 75.7% of matures (age 61 or older) who have done so.

But with less-commonly encountered Asian and South Asian cuisines—Indian, Japanese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese—the research finds that young adults are more willing to globe-trot. About 37% of both Gen Y and Gen X (ages 27 to 41) members say they have tried a Thai dish, for example, in the past year, compared with 26.2% of baby boomers (ages 42 to 60) and 23.7% of matures who say they have done so. Sampling of other Asian cuisines bears out a similar pattern among age groups, with Gen Y showing itself to be slightly more adventuresome than Gen X and both groups much more intrepid than boomers and matures. Korean food, for instance, had been ordered by 21.5% of Gen Y but only 10.1% of boomers.

Gen Y and Gen X are more likely to have tried almost all world cuisines than their elders, but the gap between younger and older is pronounced with several Asian cuisines. The exceptions to this skew are several European cuisines: broadly categorized Mediterranean food has been sampled by roughly the same percentage (about 26%) of all age groups, and German food is more popular with older consumers.

Bolder flavors may be part of Asian foods’ appeal to Gen Y, given that 36.4% of consumers in that age group strongly agree that they often order restaurant dishes that are spicier than the fare they eat at home. The desire to seek out more-fiery foods declines with age, with 31.9% of Gen X members, 27.5% of boomers and 21% of matures strongly agreeing that they often try spicier foods when dining out.

Next Up: Korean

Korean cuisine ranks as the most unexplored Asian cuisine, ordered in the past year by only 12.8% of non-Asian consumers (compared with 57.2% of Asian Americans). But 44.3% of non-Asian consumers cite Korean as a global cuisine that they have not tried but are interested in sampling. That puts it behind Caribbean, Cuban, South American and French food, but ahead of all other Asian cuisines in consumer intent.

The level of desire to try Korean food is fairly similar for Gen Y (49.1%), Gen X (42.4%) and boomers (43.6%), with interest from matures (38.2%) slightly less enthusiastic.

It’s not surprising that Asian consumers are most likely to have tried any of the Asian cuisines and that Hispanic Americans are most familiar with Mexican, Spanish, Cuban and South American cuisines. But Hispanic consumers skew above average in expressing strong interest in sampling Asian foods they haven’t tried.