Why do we care about restaurants? Hamilton eateries restore the comfort of food and community

Diane Galambos - Contributing Columnist

from on 2020-11-03 18:40 (#59XF8)

Many people have a pastime (perhaps even a passion) - sports, theatre, music, gardening, model trains - the list is endless. Two milestones this week have me pondering my lifelong dining passion. When did I begin to care about restaurants?

An early memory is dining occasionally at Hamilton's Chicken Roost before it closed (after 38 years) in 1986. I found the recipe for their iconic sauce in my mother's collection of clippings. You can still find it online at The Spectator. It would be great if someone resurrected that sauce.

Because my home-cooked meals were uninspired when younger, my dining adventures continued, expanding eventually to Toronto and New York, where I had family.

What milestones triggered such memories? Column No. 101 and my two-year anniversary sharing stories about food, dining and restaurants. When COVID-19 shut everything down in March, the way forward for restaurant reviews was unclear. Turns out there were many hospitality stories and issues worth writing about. By mid-July, the takeout/curbside pickup stories were replaced with patio dining stories. Now, even where permissible, the switch to indoor dining is not yet being embraced by all restaurants - or diners.

The story of our hospitality industry is not over, but one might ask - when did it all begin?

Artifacts and records offer proof of the ancient roots of food-related commerce, such as street food or taverns. Dining out" as a pastime is more recent. When did we begin to leave our homes to sit in public settings, in front of china and cutlery, perusing a menu, with wait staff serving food prepared by chefs? The roots of the modern full-service restaurant concept are often attributed to the French Revolution and Paris in the late 1700s. Highly skilled chefs who had been serving royal/aristocratic households were suddenly unemployed. To use one of our pandemic terms, many pivoted and opened their own restaurants.

The public" restaurant was a bit of a hard sell at first and trendsetters such as entrepreneur Cesar Ritz and Chef Auguste Escoffier courted the patronage of royals and celebrities to convince people to dine out. The scene was once only for the privileged and now we realize how much it is a privilege to dine out.

In the past year, this privilege resulted in reviews that continued to add to the Year One" list of cuisines - Jamaican, Greek, Peruvian, Indian, Turkish, Syrian, Scottish, German and we've talked about Ramen, Sushi and Pirogies.

As a theme, cuisine" shared the spotlight with caring." Why do we care about restaurants? For starters, we care about these local businesses because they care about us. Restaurants have always been charitable - supporting local sports teams and events. But over the last eight months, in the face of uncertain futures, most have been extraordinarily generous in supporting their unemployed staff and the food-insecure in their community. They can be the heart of a community and they've proven they also have a heart."

The pandemic has also reminded us that restaurants are part of a complex service and supply ecosystem." Indirectly related to the industry are many small family businesses and farms - another 110,000 Ontario jobs. That's a lot to care about.

The resilience of restaurants is admirable. They pivoted quickly to adapt to the new normal - adopting takeout (even in upscale eateries), adapting menus to make them work as takeout, creating branded products, moving into e-commerce and displaying creativity and even good humour with new projects. Pandemic disruptions gave restaurants time to reflect on the imperative of moving away from a business model where many (owners/staff) work extremely long hours, where few make a secure living wage with benefits, and where many experience serious quality of life issues - changes that are still in progress.

As diners, we must have formed the opinion that restaurants positively impact our own quality of life. How else to explain that pre-pandemic we made 9.1 million visits to restaurants daily - in Ontario alone?

So far, there are still many places where we can dine. It's challenging to compile a list of Year Two" favourite eateries. Easier to refer to some good memories. Everything at Rustic Reuben and Shiro Ramen, falafels at Tomah, sushi at Chef Martin's, the lobster roll at Jake's and the first patio experience after isolation at Berkeley North. This list could be so much longer and I wince at the thought of eateries I have not named.

We've been reminded that the restaurant industry is all about hospitality. Wikipedia explains that a restaurant's proprietor is called a restaurateur; this derives from the French verb restaurer, meaning to restore.'" I'm grateful for another year of the restoring comfort of food prepared by interesting, admirable and talented people. I love their stories. It's about the people, not just the food - and the privilege of supporting local businesses.

Diane Galambos is a food writer who shares stories and recipes at her blog kitchenbliss.ca. Follow her on Instagram https://instagram.com/kitchenblissca

Berkeley North

31 King William St, Hamilton

905-522-5858

www.berkeleynorth.ca/

www.instagram.com/berkeleynorthkitchen/

Chef Martin's Sushi House

53 King St E, Stoney Creek

905-662-0491

www.instagram.com/chef_martin_sushi_house/

Jake's Grill and Oyster House

950 Walkers Line, Burlington

905-639-4084