Slovenia Minted As Culinary Destination With First-Ever Michelin Stars
Five restaurants in Slovenia, the tiny yet fertile country bordering Italy, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, and the Adriatic Sea, have just received their first-ever Michelin stars. Celebrated chef Ana Ros earned two for her restaurant, Hisa Franko, and several other Slovenian restaurants earned one each. “Finally we have confirmation that Slovenia is a good gastronomic destination,” says Ros. “It comes at the right time because times are not easy for tourism and restaurants.” Hisa Franko, located on the Italian border in Kobarid, has attracted an endless parade of destination diners who can’t get enough of Ros’s hyperlocal, hyperseasonal ingredients and boundary-pushing dishes like mock guacamole made from lovage and smoked eggs, suckling pig stuffed pasta, and fermented wild magnolia flowers. Another first for Michelin’s just-released 2020 Guide to the “Main Cities of Europe”: Krakow, Poland now has a restaurant with a Michelin star in Bottiglieria 1881.
Bipartisan Bill Proposes $120 Billion In Relief For Independent Restaurants
Last week, Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) presented new legislation to begin a $120 billon pandemic relief fund for independent food service and drinking establishments. The Real Economic Support that Acknowledges Unique Restaurant Assistance Needed to Survive Act (the Restaurant Act) aims to offer restaurants grants so long as the ownership companies are not publicly traded and make $1.5 million or less in revenue under normal circumstances. Funds provided by the bill are in addition to any loans are grants received through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), and restaurants may use the grant for payroll, benefits, mortgage, rent, protective equipment, food, and other expenses.
On a call with reporters, Blumenauer said that independent restaurant revenue is down 51% from last year as a result of COVID-19 and that independent restaurants face unique challenges not faced by corporate-owned chain restaurants. Since April, the Independent Restaurant Coalition (IRC) has been pushing Congress to create this $120 billion stabilization fund, even though the National Restaurant Association and the International Franchise Association (IFA) criticized it for not including franchisees and small chain restaurants. The latest bipartisan version of the Restaurant Act does include franchisees but only those with 20 locations or less.
Chicago’s Acclaimed Fat Rice Restaurant Closes Amid Mistreatment Allegations
Since March, Chicago restaurant Fat Rice has been closed for dine-in service but has continued operating as the grocery store and meal kit service, Super Fat Rice Mart. After recently posting support for the Black Lives Matter movement, owners Abe Conlon and Adrienne Lo have now closed Fat Rice altogether. Upon seeing the posts of support, former Fat Rice employees called out Conlon, sharing multiple stories of mistreatment. Some former employees tossed their Fat Rice shirts in a pile in front of the restaurant, while others burned their uniforms.
The reckoning also reignited a long-running debate over the restaurant’s cultural appropriation of Macau cuisine and Conlon’s attitude toward other cultures. The chef admitted to having an anger problem but denied claims about physical altercations. Conlon apologized for his behavior both in the kitchen and in the fight against systemic racism in the U.S., saying, “I have participated in and upheld a system that needs to fall.” He went on to say, “If Fat Rice needs to fall along with that system, I am ready for that.”
America’s Michelin 3-Star Restaurants Find New Ways To Serve
While closing dining rooms due to the coronavirus, Michelin 3-star restaurants around the country pivoted their operations to continue providing high-quality meals through takeout and delivery and by feeding medical employees and others on the frontlines of the pandemic. Chef Dominique Crenn began brainstorming right away when her Michelin 3-starred restaurant, Atelier Crenn, was ordered to close in March. Crenn and a skeleton crew of around 20 employees have been making hundreds of meals a day for hospital workers, firefighters, and even a domestic violence shelter close by. She plans to continue offering some of these services after the pandemic subsides.
Alinea in Chicago, owned by chef Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas, would normally welcome guests with a $365, 18-course tasting menu. Now the 3-star Michelin restaurant is offering six-course to-go feasts for about $50. The move has been extremely successful and has helped re-employ the entire restaurant staff with 80% of their previous pay and benefits. Other restaurants like Eleven Madison Park have begun feeding frontline workers only, and the acclaimed NYC restaurant now serves 3,000 meals a day to those in need.
Food & Wine Announces Best New Restaurants 2020
Though the coronavirus pandemic has thrown the restaurant industry into disarray, Food & Wine magazine restaurant editor Khushbu Shah says, “A pandemic doesn’t cancel the work that these remarkable chefs and restaurant owners have done over the past year.” Shah completed most of the research for this year’s list just before lockdowns went into effect. The magazine’s ten Best New Restaurants of 2020 include a wide variety of venues from casual to fine dining, inexpensive to luxurious, and food trucks to white tablecloth restaurants. “The idea that a restaurant had to be a place with four walls, a front door, and daily hours felt limiting,” says Shah. “To ignore the creativity and sheer flavor that comes out of food stands, pop-ups, and trucks felt like a giant missed opportunity.” Congratulations to Automatic Seafood and Oysters (Birmingham), Bon Temps (LA), El Ruso (LA), Gado Gado (Portland, OR), Golden Diner (NYC), Molly’s Rise and Shine (New Orleans), Kalaya (Philadelphia), Nixta Taqueria (Austin), Thattu (Chicago), and Thamee (DC).
Restaurateurs Change Business Models For Successful Reopening
As restaurants across the U.S. begin to reopen, restaurateurs are switching business models to stay alive as restrictions such as capacity limitations impact profitability. In Washington, D.C., Christianne Ricchi of Ristorante i Ricchi launched the I Ricchi Food Club with a four-course Tuscan dinner to be ordered ahead and picked up at the restaurant. Customers who sign up for a four week subscription get a 20% discount, and Ricchi includes a candle, optional wine pairing, and tasting notes to help recreate the restaurant experience at home.
Greg Baxtrom decided to close his Brooklyn restaurant Olmsted until there is a coronavirus vaccine, turning the main dining room into a food bank and the private dining room into the Olmsted Trading Post. “We sell about 200 items,” says Baxtrom, “many of which people can’t get at their regular grocery store, plus prepared foods from our menu.” The chef is adding delivery and expanding the grocery operation to keep it going after Olmsted reopens. Baltimore’s Alma Cocina Latina also went through a permanent transformation. After partnering with Mera Kitchen Collective and Jose Andres’ World Central Kitchen, chef-owner Irena Stein converted the Venezuelan restaurant into a relief kitchen. Stein serves 3,000 meals a week, and “I am going to continue the relief kitchen going forward,” she says, “operating it during the day to feed communities in need, and opening as Alma Cocina Latina only in the evening.”
In San Francisco, Peter Hemsley decided to completely remodel his art gallery restaurant Palette, separating the bar from the dining room and eliminating a retail space in favor of online sales. “Going forward, I see the gallery gaining a reputation as a place to hang out with a drink and bar food,” says Hemsley.
Starbucks Closes 400 Stores, Amps Up Contactless Transactions
Over the next 18 months, Starbucks plans to close 400 locations and ramp up its contactless services, including curbside pickup, drive-thru, and mobile ordering. The move comes as COVID-19 influences consumer behavior and buying decisions. “As we navigate through the COVID-19 crisis, we are accelerating our store transformation plans to address the realities of the current situation, while still providing a safe, familiar and convenient experience for our customers,” said Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson. .
Black Chefs Prepare For Poignant Juneteenth
Juneteenth commemorates the date of June 19, 1865 when enslaved Africans in Galveston, Texas, learned from Union General Gordon Granger that they were finally free, two years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Often considered African-Americans’ independence day, this year’s Juneteenth comes amid the coronavirus pandemic and a resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement fueled by police brutality. While social distancing may alter the holiday, black chefs around the country look forward to reaffirming the importance of this historic day.
Eduardo Jordan, the James Beard award-winning chef-owner of JuneBaby, Lucinda and Salare restaurants in Seattle, says that JuneBaby’s mission has always been to educate diners about the foodways of the African diaspora. Since the pandemic began, Jordan has been feeding essential workers from his restaurants, and he’ll continue that mission well past the June 19 holiday.
Danielle Bell operates the L.A. catering company and dinner series called de Porres, and she is making her annual Juneteenth celebration different this year by sending out a newsletter menu from which customers can place orders for barbecue and other traditional foods. Barbecues are central to Juneteenth celebrations, and those traditions live on regardless of social distancing. “It’s different from any other cookout,” said Jonny Rhodes, the owner of Houston’s Indigo restaurant in Trinity Gardens, a mostly black and Latino neighborhood. “It’s a time of collective freedom.” Indigo transformed into a grocery store to stay afloat during the pandemic, and this Juneteenth, Rhodes remains focused on the importance of his primary business goal: ownership of the 800-square-foot building that houses his business, as well as six acres outside of the city.
Eat Food Takeaway Acquires Grubhub for $7.3 Billion
Just Eat Takeaway.com and Grubhub are combining to create the largest restaurant delivery company outside of China. The $7.3 billion deal meant that Amsterdam-based Just Eat Takeaway.com snatched Grubhub away from Uber after talks of teaming Uber Eats with Grubhub. The companies expect to close the deal in the first quarter of 2021 with the new company headquartered in Amsterdam in addition to U.S. headquarters in Chicago. In 2019, Just Eat Takeaway.com and Grubhub processed 593 million restaurant orders, gathering about 70 million users worldwide.
Just Eat Takeaway.com stated they will get 100% of Grubhub’s shares at an implied value of $75.15 per share. Last Wednesday, Grubhub shares closed at $59.05. If Uber had bought Grubhub, the companies would have had control over most of the U.S. food delivery business, causing regulatory issues, whereas Just Eat Takeaway.com does not operate in the U.S., easing restrictions.
Restaurateurs And Delivery Apps Clash In Fight To Survive
As delivery becomes critical to the struggling restaurant industry, restaurateurs and regulators are scrutinizing high delivery fees. Major cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle put a cap on delivery app fees until lockdowns were lifted. Now that states are reopening but restaurants are still operating at reduced capacity, delivery fees are taking a big chunk of their bottom line. In Columbus Ohio, Pierogi Mountain’s owner Matt Majesky primarily used Grubhub until he calculated that Grubhub was collecting more than 40 percent of his average order. Grubhub spokesman Peter Land said Mr. Majesky’s fees were higher than usual because Majesky agreed to take part in marketing programs that increased the restaurant’s visibility on the app. In Denver, owner of Freshcraft restaurant Erik Riggs sued Grubhub for creating a website for his restaurant without consent and labeling the restaurant as closed on the site or “not taking online orders” when this was not true.
Grubhub has since removed the language about similar restaurants “not taking online orders,” but these deceptive practices sting at a time when analysts predict that 85% of independent restaurants will ultimately close as a result of pandemic lockdowns. At the end of May, restaurant spending fell by about 35% from a year earlier, while delivery service revenue rose by nearly 140%, according to data from M Science. For most restaurants, the fixed costs of labor, food, and rent swallow about 90% of total revenues. With that business model, many restaurateurs say that delivery service fees of 20 to 30% on each order are simply unsustainable. Even with fee caps, a recent survey of San Francisco restaurateurs found that 62% percent were losing money on delivery and takeout.
