E’cco Bistro serves fine dining takeaway on brunch budget
The acclaimed chef behind one of Brisbane’s top restaurants says his rapid shift to takeaway has brought him new customers who previously thought his fine dining institution was out of reach.
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A BRISBANE culinary institution’s forced shift to takeaway under the lockdown has first-time customers flocking to it as they feast on fine dining mains at Sunday brunch prices.
E’cco Bistro owner and acclaimed chef Philip Johnson said revenue had taken a “massive” 50 per cent but his wages bill, airconditioning and laundry expenses were also significantly less.
He said the lockdown had been like hitting a reset button and he and general manager Mary Randles had “learnt a lot, in a weird sort of way”.
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“At the moment we’ve got a model that’s actually working. It’s (a pandemic) a weird way to find out how to get a working model,” he said.
“We’re just doing Wednesday to Saturday and we’re flat out keeping up with it.”
Mr Johnson said one meal, a 12 hour braised beef cheek with mushrooms and truffled mash potatoes, would be around $38 dine-in but was $25 take-out.
“So many people have said to us, ‘we thought we couldn’t afford to eat at E’cco and now we can’,” he said.
“When someone picks it up and takes it away, the service finishes there.
“It’s completely different from when someone sits in a restaurant and you have to be attentive to them for two hours.”
He said the experience had been so successful that he planned to rework his problem-plagued outdoor dining area into a high-class takeaway hub.
“I think there’ll be a market, we think we’ll take part of the takeaway and have it there.
“At first, we called the outdoor area The Terrace and we had an Asian slant, and it never really took off, so we changed it to Bar E’cco and that didn’t work.
“We may have a few seats there if they wanted to sit if they wanted too but there is no table service as such.”
Mr Johnson said diners could absolutely expect to see a return to the high-quality dine-in experience but warned reopening under social distancing restrictions would be difficult.
“We’ve got a name, we’ve been around for 25 years, we’ll open up when we can,” he said.
“If they talk about us coming back with restrictions, we would be so much worse off if we opened up and just did 30 seats instead of 60 but with all the staff required.
“It would be like opening up with one hand tied behind your back.”
He said the lockdown had highlighted just how much his business spent on staff costs and it was an expense they were reconsidering.
“The big hole in a lot of businesses are the staff costs,” he said.
“I’m all for paying staff what they’re worth but I think if some people saw what staff costs restaurants, they would be amazed.
“It hasn’t always been like that, but over the years, people will only pay a certain amount (for food) and there’s a lot of competition.”
He said he was considering small changes, like placing water and wine on the table for customers, rather than having staff pour out each individual glass, to help with the expense.
“As a chef, or anyone who’s done something for a long time, it’s difficult to change but this has taught us other skills,” he said.
“We’d like to have the outside area working and the inside working, too.”
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