The word ‘Distance’ has marked the year 2020. The ubiquitous 2-meter mantra has taken up more mental, social, and political space than so many of us could have ever imagined. As a Chef, and owner of a restaurant, distance has become a true polemic. Riding my bike to work in Montreal’s Petite Patrie neighbourhood, 1.7km from home, I am coming to terms with how the new rules of ‘distance’ have come to govern my life and occupation. And even my way of seeing the world, from my vantage point, on rue Beaubien.
My Story with distance is short - let me tell you it. My first restaurant drew people from all around the city and even around the country. It grew on the seventeen minutes of fame we received (two more than Warhol allotted me!) from forty to a hundred seats, expanding into the adjoining location. We had built a great local following, Saturday nights were hoping, but in the end the seventeen minutes were not enough to keep the hundred seats full. Eventually, after eight years, the restaurant Gods stepped in and closed the place down.
In defiance of these very same Gods I yelled, “I will build something so small; I will only need my regulars in the Hood to keep me alive. Ha! Hurl your trends and reviews, google stars and Instagram influencers, good or bad, I shall survive!” Indeed, I did go small (twenty-six seats) and focused only on the local clients we had worked with for years. Gus, my current restaurant, was born from this desire to remain close to my clientele, both physically and personally.
Restaurants, and Chefs in particular, have long been obsessed with distance when choosing ingredients. The simple term ‘Local’ encapsulates both the distance an ingredient has travelled and a familiarity with the producer. The term is understood immediately and is often used in advertising. Demonstrating the Chef is concerned about the distance it takes to arrive in his or her kitchen. Indicating they are mindful of their community and their environment. With one word, ‘local’, a word outside of the context of restaurants simply means ‘near-by’ or ‘known’, in our industry carries a moral weight. A client that knows the Chef shops local, knows they can eat with a sense of moral ease.
Unfortunately, the ingredients are not the only things that inhabit a restaurant that has an impact on the community and the environment, the clients themselves do as well. In fact, the distance the clientele travel to a restaurant may have an even greater impact on the environment than all the ingredients in the restaurant itself.
The distance a client travelled is rarely seen as an inherent ecological problem (be it car, train, or plane) as it is viewed with an ingredient, like a humble carrot. Our food is literally labeled based on its place of origin! Would the distance a carrot travelled to the restaurant be noted if it had arrived upon its own volition and politely hopped into a pot? just as our clients do (excluding the part part)!They both have travelled, exerting energy to arrive at their final destination, yet it is only the carrots' means of travel that is suspect. And the carrot’s journey is a one-way trip!
In the first wave of Covid-19 lock-downs grocery stores remained brimming with masked clients purchasing goods, amazon drivers had the roads to themselves, racing from house to house delivery yoga mats and small electronic devices, and Lumber yards were running low on all their stock even with trucks rolling in. “Goods'' were traveling all over the globe, just as before, with only a mild lack of toilet paper due to a ‘Collective O.C.D.’. Carrots continued to arrive at their destinations as they did before covid-19. Yet, the Global Climate visibly changed during lock-down. Satellite images demonstrated how clean the air had become in large cities in comparison to previous months.
What had stopped being transported was the one thing covid-19 could hurt and kill - humans. As a species we reported 4.5 billion flights in 2019. Humans filled Cars, trains, and buses, packing the roads and rails to a brim. These ‘viral vectors’ transportation around the globe had steadily increased over the centuries, increasing annually 5% since the 1990’s, before coming to a halt in early 2020; First in Asia, then Europe, and finally North America. All to stop the transmission of covid-19 we collectively ceased the transportation of Humans. Just as we would stop a shipment of diseased bananas, humans became the new commodity inspected and confined at borders.
Humans are a special kind of commodity. They do the inverse of supply when arriving at port, being units of consumption, they create demand. Their need for fuel (food) and packaging (hotels) is well known by national governments and city officials, who in turn have invested in large spectacles, festivals, and bright big buildings to attract this valuable commodity. Advertising around the globe, wishing for humans to arrive like locus onto their land.
From the moment the human-commodity arrives at their port of departure, they start consuming. A quick coffee and muffin before entering the plane, maybe a lunch on board, or shortly after arrival, a beer in their hotel room, then dinner at a restaurant of their dreams. Something to add to their “bucket list”.
Just as with other commodities we can calculate the carbon footprint of transporting humans. If a couple who lives in San Francisco decides they wish to eat at Per Se in New York rather than The French laundry in their home state, they will effectively contribute 2 Metric tons to the environment. The couples could travel twice around the globe twice and still have a smaller carbon footprint than their weekend jaunt across the continent. Rarely do we compare the transportation of ourselves with that of goods. 0.3 tons of c02 is produced by every person for an entire year through the transportation of produce they will eat, the same as flight from Toronto to Halifax.
Air travel has brought cultures and families together, a luxury of our times, but it may have to be reduced in the battle to slow climate change. Governments and individuals in the future look upon the transportation of humans as they do with other commodities when considering climate change. The covid-19 lock-down has demonstrated how any possible reduction in the future would affect our industry; giving insight into how we may prepare for changes ahead, even if the changes are not directly related to any given Pandemic.
The distance travelled to our restaurants has also shaped how some restaurants function and are experienced. ‘Destination Dining’ was once limited to high-end restaurants with international notoriety and a wealthy clientele can now be applied to the smallest diner with a great sandwich.
Michelin Guide helped to formalize the trend of destination dining in the early part of the last century. The Guide’s famous third star is literally defined by travel, “Exceptional cuisine, worthy of a special Journey” (Une des Meilleures table, Vaut le voyage). The further distance one travelled for food gave credence, reverence, and honour to the worthful Chef. Restaurants became Meccas for gourmands, traversing great distances in all directions, gripping their holy book, the famous Red bound Michelin Guide. Restaurateurs understood the value of the elusive third star and invested millions in its pursuit. Knowing gourmands, like the Magi, would follow the guiding star to their Salles a Manger; regardless of the restaurant’s location.
If Michelin was the start of this trend, the internet put the trend on steroids. Lists guided travelers to every nook and cranny in any given city. Soon a much-loved local food counter had people from all over the global sphere with greasy hands, wet from a famous sandwich. Small ‘Local Haunts’ turned into ‘Global Haunts’ far from the typical tourist areas in any given city, selling merchandise to those who wished to claim the pilgrimage.
This love of local gems is correct. I would never have allowed a Leaf Loving friend from my hometown of Toronto visit Montreal and only eat in the old Port. Fairmont Bagels and Schwartz’s Deli were a must. But as the list on the internet took over, these gems became less accessible to those in the neighborhood that housed them. Displacement of people from access to their own identity in their own communities was a new reality across the Globe before covid-19. Piazzas and Squares across Europe once lost to tourists were reclaimed by locals during the lock-down, even the pigeons had more places to roam (although possibly less to eat). In recent years, the displacement of the local economic ecosystems, that sustained a business for most of its life, has created a new means by which business operates that is perhaps not as sustainable as Covid-19 has proven. Although I am not worried about an imminent collapse of Schwartz’s, the short lines in front I see today are welcoming compared with the epic lines of recent years.
Regarding those Lists. Just the other day one ‘Best Montreal Restaurants’ popped up on my phone and I began to laugh to myself. “who needs a list today?” no one can go anywhere. I do feel sorry for the ‘List industry’ and their search for relevance over the next few years when regarding restaurants. En Routes influential and popular Top Ten New restaurants for 2020 may only include establishments doing ‘take-out’, with lots of photos of cardboard boxes. At the end of the day the power lists arose with digital publishing. As a simple example, from Gus’ kitchen many years I began see young couples standing in front of the restaurant with heads down, staring into their phones. After a few occasions I realized what was occurring, they were researching Gus itself, checking out our ‘score’. A wallflower waiting to be chosen. The digital age changed our industry more than we wish to admit. Giving distant travellers readily available information on who we are and what we do as a restaurant, good or bad.
Other industries thrive today because of their global digital reach, there is no physical distance between the ‘server’ and the client. Digital distribution networks, like Netflix and Ubisoft, can flick on a switch and sell movies and games all over the world in an instant. Even U2 can force a terrible album onto everyone’s apple device around the world, simply by signing a contract and drinking down their own Kool-Aid. That is true Global reach. That is digital distribution reach, but it also relies on ‘Digital Digestion’.
Restaurants clients, as they live further distance from where they may eat, are viewed more as a digital matrix that can be harnessed for profit, rather than a soul’s well-being ‘restored’ through nourishment and drink (the origin of the word restaurant is from the French ‘restoration’, to re-build.) Our industry model has morphed from the warmth of a taverns hearth into something more akin to digital commerce.
Internationally recognised restaurants are now ‘Brands’ that are accessible on many platforms. Client’s preferences digitally tracked, just as drugstore tracks toothpaste one uses, for future sale suggestions. White Bordeaux may pop up on the reservation screen, data captured from a previous visit, or from a visit at another location within the same restaurant corporation. In the worst examples, clients can be treated as bio-mechanical digestive tracts with credit cards -dehumanized and distant. The good restaurants do make the experience as personal as possible, a desire that is part of a restaurateur’s soul, by relying on Google’s search engine to familiarize herself with the evening guests. The corporate manuals are designed to protect and reinforce a corporate brand and instruct the staff on best ensure a personal visit by an unknown client.
Yet we will never fully cross over into the non-corporeal world of digital. We are thankfully Analog. Fire has to be applied to pans, seasoning has to be tasted, people have to carry the dishes to the table, and blessedly a person, a real human being, has to drink a cup of wine and eat plate of food as they fall in a dreamy relaxing slumber (a satiated soul).
Restaurants are more akin to an old Otis Redding vinyl, with all its scratches and quarks, that makes a whole room smile and groove when listened to. An immediate and intimate sound that cannot be transmitted outside of our walls. As owners we hear a room, we know this sound. It has a rhythm, a pace, a soft melody of tapping dishes, voices emitting joy, and people shuffling. And when the room is filled with regulars, it feels more like a house party than a business. The clients become friends, like an avatar ‘skin’ being removed, and warmth ensues. I will never get tired of listening to Otis.
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The Achilles heel of the restaurant industry, and what makes them awesome, is that we need people in our restaurants in-order to serve them. This may appear as a simple phenomenological observation ‘you need people in your restaurant to serve them’. But with the global reach of celebrity Chefs, ‘transformative’ restaurant chains, and constant flow of humans through our ‘Portes’, the restaurant industry took that principle, and integral part of the equation, for granted. Branded Chefs who relied on this constant ‘flow’ of clients around the world are now seeing the limits of the business model. Leaving them with greater financial exposure than before Covid-19. A jet-set clientele that was once viewed as an asset has become a liability.
Today downtown Montreal is a ‘Ghost Town’, with only vestiges of commuter’s coffee shops and lunch counters remaining. The life blood of many metropoles are its visitors, be it from distant cities or suburbs, they can rarely survive on the local inhabitants. Premium locations, with premium rents, near hotel and office towers, are burdens to bear by tenants during covid-19. Will these locations still garner the same monetary value in years to come?
We have forgotten the basic functionality of our industry. Our Job, that being a Chef or a restauranteur, is more akin to a Plumber or a Hairdresser. A Plumber needs pipes within arm’s reach to perform their task, just as a hairdresser needs a body with a head to sculpt. Chefs need people in their seats. A fact that has never been more apparent than now.
The compacting of distances and globalization is the world we all operate in - it is, or a least was, a simple fact of our times. And Chefs responded to those tides as other businesses did. Closing doors to people from other places would be fraught with classic nativism and reek of jingoism. Something as a society we must avoid (just look at the last four years). Yet, covid-19 has provided a harsh reminder of the nature of our business; to make people happy while in our immediate and intimate place, nourishing them with food, drink, and fun. This harsh reminder may also save our industry from future troubles, and avoid the fate of Icarus – he too should have been mindful of distance.
Knowing the short distance, I ride my bike to work, is the same short distance many of our clients will travel to Gus’ doorstep, is a comforting thought. They are ‘our’ clients, and we are ‘their’ restaurant. We are always be happy to have a weary traveller coming through our doors from a far-off distant place, finding a warm place at the Bar. But we are even more happy when the regular sitting next to them joyously provides a recommendation of what to eat.