When the balance of fruit and spicy flavours is right, “I love it,” a fellow customer at a dessert cafe in London tells me as we wait to be served. It’s 26-year-old Hannah’s third time visiting Mango Twist in Seven Sisters, which sells South American-inspired slushies and fruit bowls. She’s here, like me, to order one of its “fricy” (fruity and spicy) offerings: the “Volcano” slushie, which is the cafe’s take on the traditional Mexican chamoyada, a mango and chilli drink.
Hannah has family in the US, so is familiar with the Mexican sweet treats that are commonly available there; as a child she was “obsessed” with the flavours. So when she found out about Mango Twist, “I was like, ‘I need to come here,’” she says.
We have social media to thank for the term “fricy”, of course, which joins “swicy” (sweet and spicy) and “swavoury” (sweet and savoury) in the growing dictionary of ridiculous food trend portmanteaus. “It is kind of a silly word,” admits Holly Thomson, food editor at the online food retailer Sous Chef. “But it is translating into sales.” The website’s sales of what Thomson describes as the “hero product” of the fricy trend, the lime and chilli Mexican spice blend Tajín, are up 19% year on year in 2026 so far. Meanwhile, Waitrose reports that sales of its Mango Amba Sauce, a spicy mango condiment that originates from Iraqi-Jewish cuisine, have increased by 30% in the last year. And Stuart McAllister, managing director of hot sauce retailer Hot-Headz!, says his company has seen a surge in sales of fricy sauces over the past six to 12 months, with pineapple and mango hot sauces proving particularly popular.
When my Volcano slushie arrives, it is certainly striking, the bright yellow juice and spiralised mango contrasting with the red chamoy sauce, which is made from pickled fruit and chillis. It is also fun to consume, with its Tajín candy-dipped straw, which has to be fished out and the straw’s coating chewed slightly before you start drinking, to make a hole for the slushie to get through. The drink’s visual allure, documented on TikTok and Instagram, has brought a number of customers into the cafe, Peru-born Dominic Vargas tells me. He opened Mango Twist in 2024 and now has four branches. The flavour combination of “tangy, spicy, sweet, salty”, he says, is “something you wouldn’t find in the UK that easily”.
As well as the Volcano, I try Mango Twist’s “Mangonero” – essentially a fruit salad covered with chamoy and tamarind – and its newest product, the “Pine pop”, a massive hunk of pineapple coated with homemade chamoy. All three fricy treats are generously portioned, and slightly daunting to eat given the amount of bright red sauce dripping off them, and the fact I am wearing a white shirt. But the tropical fruit and chilli sauce flavour combination works: the heat makes it more interesting and moreish than something purely sweet. It reminds me of other dishes I’ve eaten from cuisines for which “friciness” is nothing new – such as Vietnamese papaya and chilli salads, which feel playful in the way they fill your mouth with cooling freshness and fiery heat at the same time.
Ethan Pack, head chef at Three Sheets in Soho, thinks the popularity of fricy flavours in the UK is part of a larger rise in South American cuisine – he’s noticed more pop-ups inspired by that part of the world, and more chefs experimenting with its flavours. He enjoys incorporating fricy flavours into the dishes in his restaurant, which doesn’t have a specific cuisine (“it’s just tasty bar food”). I try Three Sheets’s two friciest offerings: tomato on toast, which comes with a spicy Peruvian aji verde sauce – made from coriander, garlic, lime and chillies – and raspberry vinegar gel, and a raspberry and chilli margarita. Both are amazing – they’re sweet without being sickly, and the freshness of the fruit offers relief from all the chilli.
“Chefs have been playing with fruit in savoury dishes for a long time, particularly in cuisines like Thai food where fruit, chilli, acidity and salt are often used together,” says Luke Larsson, head chef of northern Thai restaurant Khao Bird. “What’s changed is that diners seem much more open to those combinations and are actively looking for them.”
His menu at Khao Bird currently features a watermelon salad finished with a phrik laab chilli powder, which has become very popular as the weather has warmed up, he says. A catchy name for a flavour profile like “fricy” isn’t really that important, he thinks, but it “gives people an easy way to talk about them online.” If these portmanteaus “encourage people to try something new, that’s no bad thing.”
Personally, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to bring myself to use the word “fricy” in conversation without an accompanying eye roll, but if this trend means more fresh, spicy, exciting flavour combinations on menus this summer, then I’m definitely in favour.