Oh, how we ache to eat out again

All over Sydney, cafes and restaurants are making do as best they can. And the citizenry, unused to this life on hold, stew.

Living on takeaway: the entire industry is struggling. Picture: Getty Images

Then there was the bad weather. It would come in one day when the fall was over and hover over the south west of a great and good city. (And apologies to Ernest Hemingway.) It was a bad, grim cloud that had suffocated another city in the south. Now it had moved, uninvited and much, much nastier, to close many Sydney doors. Instead of crowding the cafes and inns, the people of the city stayed home and waited for an army of couriers bringing pizza and prawns, laksa and lobster, burgers and barbecue. Truly, a moveable feast. But not necessarily a happy one.

If ever there was a city made for an abundance of restaurants and the joy of getting out and having fun and indulging and gossiping and lovemaking and deal-doing and maybe even eating great food and drinking wine, it is Sydney. A city where so much of life happens outside the office, outside the home, in public eating and drinking spaces. And yet…

As I type, the streets are quiet; the lifeblood of the restaurant industry has clotted. In dark Surry Hills alleys, chefs make pies for the fortunate who can afford $70 meal-deals to consume in front of the television. On the north shore an Italian cook grapples with the rather British concept of Beef Wellington for those who might normally eat tortellini in his dining room, but can’t. Double Bay matrons gnash their teeth at yet another cancellation of their reservation for The New Perry and settle for a little man to bring round a tin of caviar, butter tarts and crème fraîche at just $120. And on the cliffs of Bondi Beach they’re hoping the spirit of Amalfi will somehow be channelled by those who can afford the “local lobster, spaghetti vin jaune and lemon verbena butter” that will arrive in a cardboard box by van. In Darlinghurst, a chef gets out his scissors and shaving cream instead of a cleaver and lemongrass.

All over the city, the men and women of the cafes, eating houses and taverns make do, as best they can. And the citizenry, unused to this life on hold, stew.

Autumn had dawned in Australia with such promise. Melbourne, it seemed, had put a very long year of multiple, extended lockdowns behind it and the people rejoiced. There were new restaurants to try. Old favourites to patronise. From the $13 pho shops to the ivory towers of caviar and Krug, it was on again. Finally.

In Sydney, where the Covid cloud had hitherto been managed differently, one sensed the relief of having dodged the worst of the pandemic’s wretched bullet. Indeed, prior to the dawn of Delta, the entire country had enjoyed a kind of smug glow of isolated success. The interruptions had been briefer, the havoc less widespread, the mortality rate significantly lower than it was abroad. And by April, in Sydney, new restaurants were sprouting, old ones were back again; entrepreneurs were being entrepreneurial.

The optimism was yet to be kicked out of the people. As a nation, during that first 12 months of the pandemic, we all mustered a spirit of adversity. We baked sourdough and pickled everything, we made pasta and vigorous cocktails. We hunkered down when told to, and positives had come out of it. There was a sense of novelty about the whole stay-home dictate. And for some states it had been far less stressful than others. Good morning WA.

Then came the dirty, miserable Delta winter cloud over Sydney, and it didn’t shift, and it drifted at various times to Queensland, to Victoria, to South Australia. And for many Australians, it’s now with a sense of resignation that they await the lifting of restrictions.

Elsewhere, for better or worse, the rest of the world is getting on with it. On the other side of the world they are eating out, taking holidays, sitting at good cafes in Paris (although only with a Pass Sanitaire, the French vaccination passport) while we eat home- delivered takeaway and argue about which vaccine is right. In New York City – like Sydney, one of the great restaurant capitals of the world – customers and staff of restaurants and other indoor businesses are now required to have been vaccinated. End of story.

No Australian restaurateur will unilaterally go down that route and the cities of Sydney and Melbourne won’t touch it with a bargepole. Things move slowly in our great democracy. For now, at least, our restaurant reviews are under that same Covid pall; they’ll return when most of you can dine out again.

And we’ll try for a little more levity next week.

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