IMAGINING THE POST-COVID KITCHEN. CONVERSATIONS WITH BUENOS AIRES’ RESTAURANT WORKERS.
January 21, 2021
“Knowledge is a punishment. I always ask my mother why she couldn’t have given birth to a supermodel,” Manuela Donnet proclaimed with bright eyes and incredulous laughter as she topped off my glass of wine and pushed it to my side of the table. “You don’t agree?”
This was back in June when I was putting together the initial interviews for the launch of MATAMBRE and I brushed it off as a Donnet-ist provocation. When I started this I imagined comfortable conversations with colleagues about a world I thought I knew as if this were a public service and not work that would chip away at my understanding of the world and the way I interacted within it. Half a year later and Donnet’s words still frequently ring through my head and make me wonder if ignorance would truly bring bliss. Do I believe that knowledge is a punishment? No, not really. I still think that it is a gift. But I won’t disagree that knowledge is frequently painful and almost always inconvenient because we live in a world that would rather not confront the realities in front of us, which is what I think Donnet was getting at anyway.
Back in June, it felt like the conditions were right for meaningful change. Conversations felt louder and more militant. The food world seemed like it was edging towards something more collaborative and humane. Discussions about our food consumption’s impact on the environment felt more public than ever. And while I do still see that movement growing, the temptation to dial back into old habits and ideas is back as if nothing ever happened. We continued naming “the best” restaurants and the government signed a deal to insert massive pork factories for export in marginalized provinces of the north; the list of lessons unlearned extends infinitely.
If there is anything I have become sure of this year is that if we are to get close to a social revolution, we have to speak loudly and listen carefully. As I listen more and more, I see myself change. I read about the history of Argentine agriculture and thus consume less meat and choose meat that helps regenerate rather than destroy the soil. I listen to the worries of essential workers and thus use my bike instead of jumping on a bus. I speak to struggling farmers and seek out local artisans and produce directly from the hands that pick them. This all demands a lot from me, which I understand requires the privilege of time and financial resources, but I still have enough hope in me that the more people listen and know, the more they change at whatever capacity the world allows them to and hopefully work towards those changes being accessible to us all.
In the restaurant world, this feels particularly complicated. Restaurants sell us an image of perfection. The perfect dish. The perfect service. The perfect ambiance. We go to restaurants to feel happy; to feel like we are being taken care of. That restaurant work is predicated on selling an illusion makes it difficult to see (or want to recognize) the life of the people who cook our food, serve the dishes and wash them once we’re done. When I stepped back into a restaurant for the first time in December, I was surprised that so many diners were treating restaurants like a magic portal to a world where the pandemic had never existed. So this week I wanted to listen to worker’s of the local restaurant industry. Unsurprisingly, nearly everyone spoke on the condition of anonymity, which is all the more reason to hear them and let them speak loudly.
How has your perspective of your job, the restaurant world and your future in this industry changed since the start of COVID?
I realized that I love working in gastronomy but I am done with feeling exploited to make someone else money. That was what left a sour taste in my mouth after working in a restaurant during the quarantine. So many things happened, like in every other restaurant, and we ended up working with less staff and performing miracles to make delivery, a new menu and all the protocols work. I was lucky that I had work during the worst months of the quarantine but at the same time I didn’t feel taken care of by my employers because they were only thinking about making money to pay off debts. I think that it is really important to work in a serious place where the employee is a priority. There are a lot of restaurants that are owned by people who think it's all fun and don’t have experience or just no professionalism and so they do everything half-assed. I think that my future will be out of the day-to-day tasks of a kitchen. First because the pay is shit. Second because if there isn’t something extra to motivate me like learning new things or leading a team or just being able to express my creativity, it’s difficult to deal with everything else. I’ve become less patient with the hours and unprofessional situations that you have to deal with from bad management to dealing with weekly gas leaks because they don’t want to fix the pipes. I’m sure I’ll continue in the restaurant world but from the other side, maybe events or communication although if a really exciting opportunity in a kitchen comes my way, I’ll probably take it.
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We have all changed a lot during the pandemic and the quarantine not just because of all the time we spent stuck indoors but because we were able to see the work from the outside looking in and see where we fit into that whole structure. The first few months was about understanding how overworked we were. We always knew that we were overworked but it was underneath this concept that we were overworked because it was worth it and without that dedication restaurants can’t exist. The pandemic put all that into perspective. This is the way it is and we have to stop allowing it to be that way. This cannot be the only way. There was a point where I started to think that the restaurant world was going to change. We were all going to love one another and everything was going to be amazing and that clearly didn’t happen. Maybe I was a little out of touch to think that we were going to start valuing one another. The thing that creates a good work environment and team is valuing the other person. It isn’t just about showing what I can do but creating space to let other people teach me what they know. If you don’t prioritize that, there’s no such thing as a team. The pandemic happened and clearly that hasn’t changed, or at least it did in very few places. I had to find a new job in the middle of the quarantine and it was about being able to distinguish what I needed, what I wanted and how much of what I wanted I was willing to give up to get what I needed. Is this restaurant, this cafe, this place going to give me stability and support or are they going to drop me as soon as things get rough? Am I learning anything? Is this helping my craft?
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It’s changed a lot, you know? Life has a new normal and I feel like it has helped us really see, or at least for me, who and what restaurant projects are worth the work. It is really important to me to build a foundation on generosity and the ability to speak up and share ideas, and value the products that we are working with. The people that are on another tip are more and more noticeable and I’m not saying that in a bad way. Do you understand what I’m trying to say? I just don’t see a prosperous future for cooks that are on their feet for 10 hours listening to people screaming orders and serving plates without having time to do anything else. I think that the restaurant world needs to start including the workers and making them a part of the whole project.
How did your relationship with clients change from the start of COVID to today?
My interactions changed a lot. I developed an automatic distancing, which honestly feels more comfortable and safe with or without COVID. Some clients have changed their behavior for the better. Working with customers who are genuinely conscious of the situation we are working in, who respect the protocols we ask them to respect has a huge impact. But it was really hard to deal with the other side with the people who don’t adapt or don’t want to change their habits to align with new norms. A man spit in my face for asking him to wait outside because we had four people inside the entrance already. Those types of people became more violent and it put us in this situation of having to constantly teach and explain how to act in a restaurant during a pandemic even though we’ve been at it for a year. Those people haven’t learned anything. If we aren’t constantly policing, people just don’t comply. I never felt safe. Not at the beginning of the pandemic when the protocols were stricter and people seemed to have more fear of the virus and not now. It’s like people no longer feel the threat even within the workplace. So many simple protocols that are there for our safety got swept under the rug even though we are still dealing with a virus that we haven’t figured out how to control yet.
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At first everyone was really careful and maintained distance. I refuse to serve anyone that isn’t using a mask even today. But it’s really hard. At first it was so shocking to see people lining up to get a beer without distancing themselves from one another and having to constantly ask them to space out. Or two people come at once and start talking to you and maybe they have a mask on or maybe not. There were so many moments where I felt like one of those McDonalds screens that you order at because people just didn’t give a shit about keeping their mask on or giving me space. There were moments when it felt like this person does not care whatsoever that there was a human being in front of them. That hit me really hard. And it’s complicated because how militant can I be without someone taking it the wrong way or treating me like shit. This is our place. You need to follow our rules and some people just waltz in like “I don’t wear masks, I don’t use disinfectant” and it’s like, ok bye. In some ways we were lucky that the clientele reduced and we developed a different local clientele that started coming everyday and got to know us. But in general I don’t think diners really got it. They walk in with their mask in but when they come to get the second beer they’ve taken it off. I think that people are looking to go out and feel like the pandemic doesn’t exist. I understand that but it is also fucked up. I never felt safe. I think that maybe I already had it or have some freak immune system. I see at least 20 people a day and those 20 people have their own lives so it feels like you are constantly surrounded by people. A sense of safety was never there. I have chosen to not see my family unless I know that I have had time off or it was really slow for a good chunk of time and have had to ask my family to understand that my work is being around people. It’s really hard.
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Between March and October I was selling bottled cocktails and all my clients, new clients and friends, were exceptional. There was this sense of a comradery in this whole mess that didn’t last long but made me feel hopeful. In October I was contracted to work with a club in Palermo and re-do their drinks menu. The idea was to move more towards a cocktail bar format and the clientele that came at first when everything started to relax were really problematic. Complaints that they couldn’t have groups bigger than six people, complaints that we asked them to use masks when they were speaking with us, complaints about the closing hour. Before all this there was always that kind of clientele. People with belligerent attitudes that are supposedly out to have a good time and loosen up. I felt like the majority of people that went out during the pandemic belonged to that group of people that are generally inconsiderate and conflictive. I always felt safe being behind the bar but I would not want to be a server in these circumstances.
What are the changes you hope to see in 2021 and the post-pandemic future?
Abolish tips! I think that the future of restaurants around the world is not having to depend on tips. Prices should be thought out to include that and sure it will be more expensive to dine out but the person that is preparing your food won’t have to juggle five gigs to sustain themselves. During the quarantine, tips were basically non-existent and that reduced pay a lot. I just hate that what I earn depends on whether a diner likes their server or not because a lot of other factors can come into play like racism or sexism. It also can start fights amongst the team because obviously if you aren’t being paid well, you are going to fight for coins. It is a change that will be really difficult to implement but we should all do it already. Going out to eat shouldn’t depend on the cook working for scraps so that you can have a good time. It’s really fucked up that some people feel so superior that they can go out while the person in the back has to work two jobs to survive.
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The change I want to see in 2021 is a restaurant world that is friendlier to the environment. I work mostly in the hotel sector and there is a lot of waste, not just food, but ornamental symbols of luxury that are not necessary to a good service. So I hope that gastronomy becomes more empathetic of the reality of a world that has less and less natural resources. I hope for a restaurant world that is more sympathetic to the restaurant worker. We are workers of a risky industry. Most infections happen in public transport or in restaurant spaces. A lot of us are dependent on what our superiors allow us to do or not do, and a lot of times that doesn’t align with what is the safest for us.
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We need to change the tax system for policies that allow independent, small and medium businesses to have all of their employees 100% on the books. To ask a small restaurant to pay the same taxes or to pay into the system the same way that the Four Seasons does is an absurdity that doesn’t benefit anyone. Any discussion about an industry that doesn’t take into account that it is a sector that depends wholly on precarious work while they have 25% of what they sell on the books is useless.
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I would like to see more recognition of restaurants that survived thanks to their own hard work. Places that fought and have done absolutely everything that they can to come out of this without help from anyone or because they are the stars of the restaurant scene. It felt so wrong to watch the awarding of restaurants that exist within their own bubble while everyone outside of it had to watch the party they threw for themselves. It was so disrespectful to all the places that had to close in the midst of all this, really, it just felt so wrong. Such a lack of empathy for so many places that have fought tooth and nail to survive on their own with whatever tools they have. I would really like to see a restaurant world that stops idolizing the gatekeepers and really value the people that work sincerely to build something genuine and keep it afloat.
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What we need now more than ever is to manage our resources more efficiently, which is something that pre-pandemic we weren’t seeing very much. We need to build teams that are smaller and better trained. I really want to work with teams whose common goal, besides making delicious food, is to have zero waste. The industry needs to transform itself into something more sustainable now and forever. All the data is there. It’s 2021.
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I think things are already changing and it is becoming more and more evident. What I want is to separate us from that corporate style of running restaurants that has been the norm in Argentina for the last forty years and in its place connect to something more artistic. The individual. I want to see the perspective of every individual, every cook, every server that makes up a restaurant. I think that to accomplish that we need to open our minds and let things we aren’t necessarily comfortable with lead us. That’s change. Change brings surprises and ideas that not everyone will agree with. But cooks and clients need to accompany that change and also help the next generation of cooks take risks without that weight of feeling like you are going to ruin your career or piss off the wrong people. I want more risk taking. Obviously we all want to return to the earth, connect ourselves with vegetables, teach the Argentine diner to valuable vegetables. We are already seeing a lot of natural wines which means we are consuming less chemicals. We aren’t going to accomplish all of this in a year. These are changes that will take a decade at least but I think it is starting to happen.
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I think that this was beginning to happen prior to the pandemic but the restaurant world’s new blood, people who came from really fucked up places. When I say fucked up I mean working with powerful people, the local celebrities that mistreat the people. That new blood that is coming up now that decided to leave those spaces is giving the industry an upgrade. They understand good product, technique, they have a sense of craft and experience running teams which is really important. They want to run this ship a better way. And obviously we are all going to make mistakes along the way but the important thing is learning from them because we don’t want to be like our predecessors who are still here and will continue to stick around. Bad kitchens will survive and people will keep going to eat at those restaurants, sometimes we do too because we have friends that work there doing cool work, whatever. But there are more and more opportunities to grow within this new wave of culinarians. The pandemic can either be a motor to regenerate the whole system or destroy small projects but I want to see the half glass full and say that things are getting better and they will continue to get better.