Interesting perspective from chef and restaurateur Vivian Howard, writing in The New York Times: The Impossible Art of Keeping a Restaurant Afloat. She writes about the challenges at all levels of the business.
P.S. Let me know if the gift link above doesn’t work.
Thanks for the gifted link–an interesting read and the comments were enlightening.
I read that earlier today. Is she saying the restaurant is pivoting to takeout? Or self-serve? I couldn’t really figure it out. (I guess I could just reread it, but nah.)
I thought she meant counter service–you order and the cooks hand it to you at the counter,
Right, to eat at home, if I’m interpreting this sentence correctly.
Next-level take-and-bakes, chef-prepared assemble-and-eats and pasta deliveries, when coupled with an already operating kitchen, will help make us whole.
Unless that’s just a reference to the general evolution of restaurants.
Maybe she plans to offer both? In-house at limited hours and take-home options to supplement and maximize the kitchen’s potential without a burdensome staffing requirement?
Hence my comment that her meaning was kind of ambiguous.
Here is the NYT article about it.
In case this didn’t show up yet:
How Noma Made Fine Dining Far Worse - The Atlantic
and on a lighter note:
I can understand that restaurants have to think about reducing cost etc to survive. At the same, at least for me, but I know a lot of people who think similarly, any restaurant which has only self-serve (or take out) is off my list of restaurants-to-visit (which focusses only on restaurants for dinner as I never to to restaurants for lunch). I doubt a lot of people ate willing to spend significant money if you are acting more like a fast food restaurant
I think perhaps the cost won’t be quite as “significant” if there’s no table service. I’m fine with carrying my own food to a table.
30 unpaid “interns” on staff, with a constant waiting list to get in. I call bullshit. Using free labor at the worlds best restaurant…complete bullshit. Of course it’s unsustainable. Jesus Christ.
We don’t like to be rushed in restaurants and always order in multiple waves and so each time go to order to food and then again pick up the food is pretty disruptive of great conversations etc. - at that point I don’t see much advantage over just cooking at home.
Well, there’s always the no prep, no cleanup thing, but if that’s not important to you, then yeah, cooking at home would be more your speed.
… or more importantly picking the right restaurants (as we really like dining out). In addition, I doubt that the potential trend of self service will be successful as restaurants will have lower costs but at the same time also have to significantly lower the prices as I doubt customers are willing to pay similar prices as with full service restaurants
Isn’t fine dining being fed crackers in bed .
The person I know personally who completed a stage at Noma around 2013 was middle-aged Canadian chef. He had completed his training in the UK in the 1980s, and he has been an instructor at one of Canada’s chef schools for decades. He had also been Chef at a top French restaurant in a tourist destination for close to 25 years. I took cooking classes from him for several years.
The fact a 50 yo with a good job would work for free for a few weeks at Noma, to add Noma to the CV, says something, too.
I absolutely believe a chef who has financial stability would have no problem whatsoever working a FEW WEEKS (your words) at NOMA for no pay so they can add it to their CV.
“NOMA’s reputation is so great that the unpaid cooks are happy to do it for their CV” is not an argument I’d make. Your example of a 50 year old, who by the sound of it did it for kicks - which is fine, doesn’t really resonate here.
(post deleted by author)
Curious, what’s his feedback to the stage?
