There is no single Australian stage: each city has its own, worked out from its own cafes with the same rules. This is the stage most of the cities share (Gold Coast, Adelaide, Hobart, Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Perth); every city's own stage is in City by city.
Emerging: Fewer than 5 Sydney cafes have it, or the first cafe post or review we have is under 120 days old, or creators are posting it before any cafe has it. It also covers anything on a small share of cafes that is holding steady.
Honey with chilli through it, drizzled over fried chicken, halloumi, pizza and toast.
Biggest in Gold Coast, on 8% of its cafes in the last 90 days.
Each card counts the city's cafes with a post, a customer review or a current menu naming it in the last 90 days. Its share is of that city's own cafes, so a smaller city can be ahead.
We don't read Adelaide, Hobart, Canberra and Perth cafes' own posts yet, so their figures come from Google reviews and menus only.
“Where to get one” lists a different set: cafes with it on a current menu or in a cafe's or creator's post, whenever it was. That is why a city's count there is not the same.
Honey with chilli through it, drizzled over fried chicken, halloumi, pizza and toast.
Drawn as a hot honey fried chicken bun, the way cafes most often serve it.
Illustrative: a typical plate, not one cafe's recipe.
Where to get one286 cafes in 8 cities: 225 on their menus, 61 from posts. Prices are from the menus and may have changed.
Showing 10 of 286 cafes, cheapest first
Australian cafes with Hot honey on their menus or in their posts.
8cities where we've seen it
By Nov 2026 (so far)
Each bar is how many cities had a cafe post or review of it that month; Nov 2026 is not over yet, so its bar is so far.
Each city appears in the month of its earliest post or review in our data and grows as more of its suburbs have it. Its size is its cafes so far, never added to another city's.
Data updated 13 Nov 2026.
“Hot honey is on 286 cafe menus across 8 Australian cities, and furthest ahead in Gold Coast (8% of its cafes).”
Honey with chilli through it, drizzled over fried chicken, halloumi, pizza and toast. The Froth has seen it at cafes in 8 Australian cities (Gold Coast, Adelaide, Hobart, Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Perth) as of 13 Nov 2026.
It is on 286 cafe menus across 8 cities right now, including Bean Surfing Cafe in Palm Beach, Gold Coast, Frenchs Fair Bakery & Café in Frenchs Forest, Sydney, Esculent in Old Reynella, Adelaide and Andonis Cafe & Bar, Chermside in Chermside, Brisbane. The "Where to get one" list on this page has every menu, city by city, with the price where the menu gives one and directions. Menus change, so check with the cafe before you go.
The average is $18.79, from 101 cafe menus in 6 cities as of 14 Nov 2026. Most charge between $10.99 and $26.90; the lowest we have seen is $8.55 and the highest $30. Each city's own average is on its page.
Of the cities The Froth reads, Gold Coast has it on the biggest share of cafes: 8% of Gold Coast cafes in the last 90 days, against 4.6% in Adelaide and 4.6% in Hobart. Each city's share is of its own cafes, so a smaller city can be ahead.
There is no single Australian stage: each city has its own, from its own cafes. The Froth rates it Emerging in Gold Coast, Adelaide, Hobart, Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Perth as of 13 Nov 2026.
The earliest cafe post or customer review about hot honey that The Froth has, in any city we read, is from 16 Aug 2024. We only see what we collect, so that is when we first saw it, not when it started: it may have been sold earlier, here or elsewhere.
A typical hot honey fried chicken bun, drawn from cafes' own posts, is built from the top down with bun, top (the top half), pickles (a few slices), hot honey (honey warmed with chilli, poured over the chicken), fried chicken (a crumbed, fried thigh), slaw (shredded cabbage and carrot, lightly dressed) and bun, bottom (a brioche or milk bun). Each cafe makes its own version, so this is a typical plate, not one cafe's recipe.
Every city is counted on its own, with the same rules: a cafe counts for hot honey from the first public post or customer review we found about it, and while it is on the cafe's current menu. A city's share is of its own cafes we see well (an Instagram post or a current menu in the same 90 days, a chain counting once), and its change compares the same cafes in the last 90 days with the 90 before. Cities' cafe figures are never added together, because we read some cities' posts and others only from reviews and menus. Searches are monthly search demand across Australia with all of a trend's names added up. The full method is on our "How we track cafe trends" page.