Of painters and restaurants
COVID-19 has made scheduling especially tough for two very different parts of the economy
We are away from our home as painters decorate the whole place. It’s not without challenges for them. They told me that they’re juggling jobs to work around the sudden impact of clients telling them they’ve tested positive for COVID-19 midway through projects and the attendant need for self isolation. That drives up cost.
Last evening we visited Waterside, a local bistro that offers a five course tasting menu for a relatively inexpensive price of £40 a head. It’s a great example of a local eatery sourcing local produce, including a selection of English wines.
You’d think that such a spot would be heaving, having garnered a gushing write up from uber food critic Jay Rayner. Among other things, he said of one lunchtime course:
A thick disc of braised pork collar arrives with pieces of roasted fillet and golden, bubbled fragments of battered black pudding that shatter beneath the teeth. For we are in Yorkshire and this is what a proper lunch looks like. There are delicate rings of pickled onion and to bring it all together a sweet savoury cider and pork stock jus.
It’s an apt description. Our meat mains was a sous vide cooked fillet of mutton that was medium rare. If that sounds iffy then you’d be mistaken. Packed full of flavour, this dish works incredibly well when the fat has been pan rendered.
But…we were the only patrons the entire evening. Waterside is tiny on the inside with room for only 20 covers. You can just about swing a Manx cat by its non existent tail in the kitchen. But chef Huddleston turns this tiny space into a magic shop, serving up big flavours in an imaginative manner that reflect the heart and soul of Yorkshire sourced food at its finest.
The owner lamented that over the recent Christmas holiday season they had 60 cancellations. At a conservative £25 a head, that’s £1,500 at least in lost revenue. Why? The unpredictable nature of COVID-19.
The pandemic may be all but over in the legislative minds of what passes for British government but its long tail impact is far from over.
As someone who both appreciates and is prepared to pay for fine food and quality workmanship, it is excruciating to see how the pandemic has had a disproportionately heavy impact on those who take pride in their craft. Whether they all survive is an open question.
In the meantime we are leaving the painters for a few weeks to get on with our project without having to concern themselves with our fussing around them.
But we’ll be dining again at Waterside in a few days. Once was never going to be enough Next time we will take a crack at the a la carte menu and, perhaps, other English wines. I’m hoping there will be other diners on that next occasion. Having a restaurant to yourself for one time is kind of OK, but twice would be worrying.