Playing safe with a starter menu is no longer an option. Why? Because it's the place British customers expect to see new ideas. This is a trend that has been observed across the board, by Park Lane hotels, gastropubs and neighbourhood restaurants alike.

Thomas Polti runs the Chequers gastropub in Millbrook, Bedfordshire, and claims to have worked out the reason behind this trend. "My theory is that choosing an unusual starter is less of a risk," he says. "If diners choose the wrong main course it's a disaster because they'll leave hungry, but they can take a chance on the starter."

It's a trend that has been noted at the Four Seasons Hotel London. "Guests are more adventurous with starters than mains, where roast rib of beef and Dover sole are still our best-selling dishes," confirms Richard Raab, director of food and beverage. "Chef Bernhard Mayer can now be more creative with his starters, such as seared diver scallops with pineapple carpaccio and sweet chilli, or green apple and wasabi soup."

So if customers are looking for more exotic starters, what unexpected ingredients might work? Imaginative starters from Heston Blumenthal have featured roast foie gras and rhubarb, and carpaccio of cauliflower with chocolate jelly. And reviews of Andrew Turner's work at London's Bentley hotel include references to an unusual starter of "a coffee cup of velvet smooth velout made from rabbit, served with a perfectly formed samosa of confit pork flavoured with tarragon... the soup had a deliciously delicate flavour of bunny."

Many exotic meats are readily available. Ostrich is said to be the best low-fat burger meat you can find, and the rule is that anything you can do with beef you can do with ostrich. Paul Cook, of Bristol supplier Osgrow, says it has a place on starter menus. "A traditional oak-smoked ostrich served with melon makes a more interesting starter than Parma ham. We also find that a lot of ostrich eggs are bought for scrambling, to go with something like smoked gammon - and one ostrich egg equals two dozen hen eggs."

Scorpions in rice wine may be a little expensive for starters, at 2 each to the trade, but locusts are said to have a very nutty flavour, and recipes for the "John the Baptist stir-fry" starter can be found both in Britain, at the Archipelago restaurant in Fitzrovia, London, and in Israel. The locusts are fried for a few minutes before the addition of clear honey and fresh orange juice, and the result is served on a bed of leaves. A pack of 10 African desert locusts is 7.95 from Barrow Boar of Yeovil.

The other key to a good trade in starters is to market them properly. A starter can also be featured as a sharing dish or a solo snack, and it is in recognition of this that the Feathers hotel in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, now has a grazing section on its bar menu.

Good promotion can revitalise dishes such as prawn cocktail. If 93% of social clubs still serve them, a market exists, says Laura Troughton, of Whitby Seafoods, so give it a ritzy name and let the menu say "This is the best prawn cocktail you can get." The key is to look for large prawns. One of Whitby Seafoods' own local venues, Greens restaurant, reports success in using extra-extra-large prawns with langoustine tails and a sauce featuring a dash of brandy.

Be careful not to overpower the main course with the starter, is the advice from Antony Bennett, development chef for RHM Foodservice. He says that if the main courses on a menu are fairly mild, it is important not to serve strongly flavoured starters, as the taste-buds will be overpowered.

Bennett considers seasonal produce is the key to a good starter menu and advises looking for scallops, leeks and cabbage at this time of year.

Plan your starters according to the weather, the season and also the time of day, says Naresh Guglani, development chef at rice supplier Veetee. In hot weather, idli (a kind of steamed patty made from the paste of soaked ground rice and urad dal lentils) can be served with a chilled yogurt. When it's cold, a spicy mulligatawny benefits from a tablespoon of steamed basmati rice accompanied by a wedge of lemon and fresh coriander. Better still, he observes, a quickly made starter is good strategy.

He advises that at lunchtime customers might have only 30 minutes for an entire meal, so starters need to be very light, small and served exceptionally quickly. There is more to this than meets the eye - little impresses a customer so much as the starter appearing almost immediately.

Match speed of delivery with attention to detail, says Woodward Foodservice trading director Dave Howarth. "Making a good impression at the very start is vital to the success of the whole meal," he says. "To ensure a faultless first act, a firm eye must be kept on presentation. Attention to detail is paramount. Spending time to carefully select salad leaves and create a special dressing is not whimsical; it conveys to customers that chefs have gone to great efforts."

With an imaginative sense of marketing, Francisca Bollema, brand manager for potato speciality suppliers Aviko, recommends that caterers look at snacking trends and the sporting calendar, and combine the two.

"A starter is often eaten as a course in isolation, as a light lunch or snack. Particularly in the pub market, starters and sharing platters are always popular during big sporting events. 2006 will, of course, see the football World Cup, and with it once again being hosted in Europe, matches will coincide with the major eating times of lunch and dinner.

"Many people who order starters as a snack will do so on impulse. You can give them a helping hand by strategically promoting starters with tent and show cards, and leaving starter menus on tables for customers to look over before receiving the main menu."

Not to be ignored is that old favourite, soup, which according to owners of the Maggi brand, NestléFoodservices, is a market worth £11.9m. The company finds that traditional flavours such as tomato and mushroom are particularly popular in the hotel and restaurant market, while potato and leek is showing growth in hotels. Spring vegetable alone has grown 13% in the last year. Unilever Foodsolutions says the market is growing at a rate of 4.5% year-on-year, and the company has added three new traditional flavours - leek and potato, French onion, and wild mushroom - to its Knorr brand.

Campbells suggests tricks to turn a standard soup into something special. Variations on oxtail can include sherry and even semolina, while the addition of a dry cider to a standard French onion soup turns it into a Normandy soup. Simon Muschamp, head of marketing at Pritchitts, says the company's Millac coconut cream can be the secret behind a Thai chicken and coconut soup or feature in a coconut and mango sauce to serve with prawns.

Even more exotic is an idea from a malt whisky enthusiasts' group, based on the French tradition of "faire chabrot", which essentially means adding a good slosh of red wine to a soup. Typically, the base might be pre-prepared chicken or beef broth, with cooked chestnut, foie gras pt, mixed spices and double cream. Then comes the malt, but it has to be a good one - Macallan 18-year-old is said to do remarkably well in such a soup

Contacts

Barrow Boar 01963 440315 www.barrowboar.co.uk

Bonta Italia 01923 839446 www.bontacosta.co.uk/bontaitalia

Nestlé Foodservices 0800 742842 www.nestlefoodservices.co.uk

Osgrow 0875 165 1408 www.osgrow.com

Pritchitts 0845 130 0307 www.pritchitts.com

Rutland Snails 01780 720226

RHM Foodservice 0800 3284246 www.rhmfoodservice.co.uk

Unilever Foodsolutions 0800 783 3728 www.unileverfoodsolutions.co.uk

Veetee 0800 032 1673 www.veetee.com

Whitby Seafoods 0800 731 6596 www.whitby-seafoods.com