artofeating.comThe Art of Eating Magazine | Food, Wine, & Taste

The Art of Eating Magazine | Food, Wine, & Taste Facebook Twitter Instagram Menu About About Favorite Things Print Back-Issue Contents Contributors Contact Us Magazine Issue No. 106 Issue No. 105 Issue No. 104 Issue No. 103 Issue No. 102 Issue No. 101 Issue No. 100 Issue No. 99 Issue No. 98 Issue No. 97 Issue No. 96 Issue No. 95 Recipes Asia Bread and Pastry Cheese and Eggs Fish, Seafood, and Snails France Fruit and Nuts Italy Meat (Pork, Lamb, Beef…) Pasta and Polenta Poultry and Rabbit Salads Sauces and Condiments Soups and Stews Spain Sweet Vegetables and Fungi Cheese Anthology The Cheeses About the Cheese Anthology How to Buy, Store, and Eat Cheese A Short Cheese Glossary Prize The Art of Eating Prize Judges Rules Entry Longlist Shortlist Winners Subscribe / Sign In Shop Menu About About Favorite Things Print Back-Issue Contents Contributors Contact Us Magazine Issue No. 106 Issue No. 105 Issue No. 104 Issue No. 103 Issue No. 102 Issue No. 101 Issue No. 100 Issue No. 99 Issue No. 98 Issue No. 97 Issue No. 96 Issue No. 95 Recipes Asia Bread and Pastry Cheese and Eggs Fish, Seafood, and Snails France Fruit and Nuts Italy Meat (Pork, Lamb, Beef…) Pasta and Polenta Poultry and Rabbit Salads Sauces and Condiments Soups and Stews Spain Sweet Vegetables and Fungi Cheese Anthology The Cheeses About the Cheese Anthology How to Buy, Store, and Eat Cheese A Short Cheese Glossary Prize The Art of Eating Prize Judges Rules Entry Longlist Shortlist Winners Subscribe / Sign In Shop About About Favorite Things Print Back-Issue Contents Contributors Contact Us Magazine Issue No. 106 Issue No. 105 Issue No. 104 Issue No. 103 Issue No. 102 Issue No. 101 Issue No. 100 Issue No. 99 Issue No. 98 Issue No. 97 Issue No. 96 Issue No. 95 Recipes Asia Bread and Pastry Cheese and Eggs Fish, Seafood, and Snails France Fruit and Nuts Italy Meat (Pork, Lamb, Beef…) Pasta and Polenta Poultry and Rabbit Salads Sauces and Condiments Soups and Stews Spain Sweet Vegetables and Fungi Cheese Anthology The Cheeses About the Cheese Anthology How to Buy, Store, and Eat Cheese A Short Cheese Glossary Prize The Art of Eating Prize Judges Rules Entry Longlist Shortlist Winners Subscribe / Sign In Shop What’s Going to Happen to Restaurants Now? Even Before COVID-19, US Restaurants Were Struggling By Edward Behr “I n 2020, the size of the US restaurant industry was going to be $899 billion, or about 4 percent of the US economy, according to the National Restaurant Association. That number suggests chains, but seven out of ten restaurants, the association says, are “single-unit operations.” Year by year, until now, we all know we’ve been cooking less and eating out more. Restaurants support travel and tourism and farms and help drive the economic revitalization of towns and neighborhoods. Restaurants provide jobs to the young and those who lack training or credentials; professional kitchens widely depend on low-wage, often undocumented people of color — washing dishes, prepping, cooking on the line. (At least a few owners pay the best they can.) When those jobs are lost to COVID-19, some of the most vulnerable people suffer. Each restaurant is different, but the association says a typical pre-tax profit margin is 4 to 6 percent and has been at that level for a long time (the association’s researchers have been working from home and without access to hard numbers from the past). But anecdotally the margin used to be much higher and there has been continuing downward pressure from all over — big-city rent, cost of better ingredients, the effort to do better by workers, in some places competition from too many other good restaurants. There’s no separate data for the kind of restaurant that seeks out high-quality local ingredients, is especially proud of its skills, and tries to be fair in all its dealings, but at a guess, its margin is 2 to 3 percent. Quarantine taught us to value more than ever the pleasure of being with and eating with others. We missed that so much that some of us sought virtual cocktail hours, virtual wine tastings, and virtual dinner parties. We loosened up on social distancing before we should have. Setting aside fast-food chains, among all the reasons restaurants succeed the first may be what they do for us socially. By keeping us apart, COVID-19 challenged restaurants at their heart. The bad news about restaurants came in a cascade. At the end of April, Gabrielle Hamilton wrote at length in The New York Times Magazine about the precariousness of her restaurant, Prune, in the East Village of New York City, saying, “Even famous, successful chefs, owners of empires, those with supremely wealthy investors upon whom you imagine they could call for capital should they need it, now openly describe in technical detail, with explicit data, how dire a position they are in.” The next day, Alain Ducasse, France’s most successful chef (judging by his 19 Michelin stars distributed among ten restaurants around the world), told President Macron at a video conference of leaders of his country’s hospitality industry, including chefs , “We’re not optimistic about the survival of about half of our restaurants.” (Ducasse isn’t a wholly sympathetic figure; his website features a banner photo of him with eight of his chefs, all white, all men.) The talk everywhere was about how or whether to reopen. For Nia Grace of Darryl’s Corner Bar & Kitchen in Boston’s South End (in an interview by Deyscha Smith for boston.com), the big concern was social: “For us culturally, we’re like, dang, let’s think about that guy that we always see on Tuesday nights who always has a story to tell us, be it good or bad. That’s therapy for him. What is he doing now?” And “that mother who makes this her stop on her way home, what’s her therapy like? For this kind of industry where we thrive on people, we’re suffering. This is a depressive state.” … read more Classic Read Palm Honey of La Gomera A Recipe for Now Wild Mushroom Ragù Favorite Things From Herbs to Big Napkins More More Select Category Asia Books Bread Cheese and Eggs Fish France Fruit and Nuts Herbs, Spices, Oils Italy Meat Mexico Middle East Pasta People, Poems, Thoughts, Opinions Recipes Resources Restaurants Salads Sauces and Condiments Six Addresses Spain Sweet Tea and Coffee Vegetables and Fungi Why This Bottle Really? Wine, Beer, Cider, Spirits Why This Bottle, Really? Why This Bottle, Really? Tormaresca’s Torcicoda Silvestro Silvestori • The Peculiarities of Primitivo... Why This Bottle, Really? Yarlington Mill Cider, Oliver’s Susanna Forbes • Speyside Casts Its Spell... Restaurants What’s Going to Happen to Restaurants Now? Edward Behr • Even Before COVID-19, US Restaurants Were Struggling... Restaurants: Rome Redux Sara Jenkins • The Eternal City Eternally Delicious... Books Books: Gary Paul Nabhan’s Mesquite Chris Malloy • A Forgotten King of Regional American Eating... Books: Cesare Giaccone’s Tre Atti in Cucina Edward Behr • Artistry in Two Media... Asia Kyrgyzstan and the Cuisine of the Silk Road Maria Korneitchik • Truly Nomadic Food... Are They Street Hawkers if They’re Not on the Street? Tse Wei Lim • Four Hawker Meals in Singapore... Bread Spoonbread Spoonbread is a counterpoint to usual American cornbread. Where that calls for much... Man’oushé Barbara Abdeni Massaad • The Lebanese Love Their Bread... Cheese Reblochon Maria Korneitchik • A Cheese at the Summit of the Alps ... Le Brie, La Brie, Les Bries Guélia Peyzner • The Most Parisian of Cheeses... France Reblochon Maria Korneitchik • A Cheese at the Summit of the Alps ... Cucumber Salad Cucumbers with sour cream and dill are good on their own and go... Herbs, Spices, Oils Rosemary Ice If you can, choose young branches sticky with resin. In hot weather, the... Argan Oil Corinna Sargood • The Berber Tree of Life and the Acrobatic Goats... Meat Kumelwick Kevin Powers • Next Time You're in Buffalo... Cassoulet At the restaurant Chez Émile in Toulouse, the cassoulets are assemble...