I have never come to understand why everyone thinks that the easiest way to live is hospitality; but there are still lots of people who think that, in a pinch, a bar, a restaurant, will solve their life. These citizens ignore the harshness of work, the slavery of the business, the endless hours, the insatiable tax burdens that come from the three administrations …
Many of those returned emigrants failed but others, and not a few, succeeded. On this scale, the triumph is not measured by Michelin stars, but by the much more reliable reaction of the public, who occupy the tables every other day, who are faithful, who are there because they are comfortable there and, In addition, you eat well, food between home and tavern, but trustworthy, made by the landlady and some assistant booked as a result of the success. Reliable raw materials, from the environment, or from the bosses’ town, who call for the lentils, or the beans, from a trusted supplier, perhaps a relative. Dishes cooked there from start to finish, no precooked packaged goods, cuisine we called “honest” because it was.
One only has to compare how the french fries come out in one of these houses with how they are given to one in a cafeteria, but we did not give it importance, it was a minor matter, in those houses there were no “delicacies”, the traditional cuisine was something that had to be overcome.
Today the panorama is different, new restaurants proliferate, under the most diverse formulas: ‘gastrobars’, open 24 hours … They are usually set up by young people, more or less prepared (not for the hotel industry: as always, they believe that it is the safest nail to cling to), with studies, but without work. They believe that by setting up a hospitality business, their friends will be enough to fill it every day, and there they go, not to cook, nor to serve tables or drinks. To be there. dressed in white. Spotless, of course, smelling of fabric softener, not kitchen. They have hired a cook, a kitchen assistant, two people for the bar, another two for the dining room and, fundamentally, the services of a communication agency.
Friends go … as long as they are invited. The invoices, invariably, arrive, you have to pay the suppliers and, above all, the staff. In addition, there are taxes, licenses, local expenses … the accounts do not come out, the food they give is the same as that given in hundreds of similar establishments: slight variations on the same theme. Kitchen, little: design, sometimes.
And, it’s true, sometimes they even get lucky and do well. This is the case in which they find a vocational chef, who cannot open his own premises, and they are able to understand and support him (that is, to say “you are in charge of the kitchen”). Here there are, indeed, chances of success. But when the restaurant is set up by one of those people who cook well at home, encouraged by their friends (“you have to set up a restaurant…), the bump is almost inevitable.
Luckily neighborhood taverns are resurfacing, places where Mrs. Julia on duty leaves all her culinary wisdom, her time and her affection in the dishes she offers to her customers, and whose menu is totally based on the market and what she knows. to do: what there is, there is, and if the calluses are on Thursdays, don’t ask for them on Mondays, don’t bother, man …
Places where you know you are going to eat well, where the family that arrived from Germany 40 years ago has been touched by the sacred vocation of cooking, family businesses, bless them. The guides overlook these sites, with the more than logical consequence that consumers end up skipping the guides. The new critics ignore them (the old ones, of course, not) and sing the excellence of dishes (and restaurants) that will last in their memory for just a moment, but the common man continues to appreciate that cuisine of flavors that are familiar to them, that are in your gastronomic subconscious. And he knows where to go to find her.
Author: Andrew SWEET