Josh Freed: Despite the COVID effect, the restaurant experience is still worth it

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The COVID-19 earthquake is subsiding, but its tremors are still felt in many ways, from fear of riding the subway to empty cinemas to air kisses half a meter away.

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But nothing has changed more than restaurants, which are now as unrecognizable as the waiter behind a mask, making it even harder than before to remember which one is yours.

For those who have yet to set foot in one since the beginning of the pandemic, here is what to expect from our reinvented restaurants:

– Patio please: Many indoor dining rooms are half empty, while their terraces have a 40-minute wait. Everyone is still fighting for a fantastic and safe outdoor spot, regardless of the temperature, to avoid sharing their air.

Many places have acquired heat lamps, long-standing characteristics in Europe that are just becoming popular here as Montréal, struck by COVID, try to take advantage of more days in the fall. When winter comes, will our decks offer fur blankets like in Scandinavia or will they ask for BYOB? Bring your own blanket?

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– Sanitized seats: As you sit down, you will think that someone has stolen everything from your table. Gone are the packets of mustard, ketchup, salt, pepper, and sugar that were once on tables, and they were quickly removed so people don’t contaminate them. They have followed the path of ashtrays, once routine also on tables.

Even the most basic table setting has vanished: your knife and fork. Most places now take them out packaged in antiseptic napkins, like a surgeon’s scalpels, to reduce human contact. Others offer plastic cutlery for cutting the rib steak.

Customers used to seek out the liveliest section of a restaurant, disappointed if they were led into an empty spill room. Now, that’s where many want to be, restorers say, away from human breath.

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“People still want people around to have fun, but they also want space,” says Stephen Marcone, owner of the popular Italian restaurant Amerigo in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. “They want to be part of the action, but not in the middle of it. It’s as if we were bumping our fists again but not shaking hands.”

– Masking rules: They are so complex that nobody understands them. You should wear masks while waiting outside in line, but you can unmask inside all night at your crowded table, as long as you re-mask yourself when heading to the bar or bathroom alone. But it’s okay to drink and meet on the bar TV and cheer on the Habs.

Waiters should always wear masks, making it difficult to hear them as they try to recite the specials of the day. Few still give long adjectival-laden descriptions of “Sargasso Sea Fish Mix served with freshly caught Norwegian seaweed, carbon-free, carbon-neutral, etc.” or they would be out of breath. Instead, expect this:

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Waiter: Today’s spzzzchl is a schnassper fillet in shlolandze sauce with fresh gnsnsx.

You: Sorry, I didn’t quite understand that.

Waiter: Shorry. I shaid: The Spexxl is shpsspyer in schlondz (gasp) sorry … in schlondzsze (gasp) …

You: Never mind, I’ll have a hamburger.

– Staff reduction: Restaurants everywhere are short employees who have fled the long-hour, low-wage business en masse. His replacements often seem as untrained and clumsy as I would be, some so baby-faced that I should card them.

I was at a takeout sushi restaurant last week, and the two brother cashiers were no more than 11 years old. At least the chef was his father, not his teenage brother. If the shortage of waiters worsens, we may have to lower the legal working age to five years.

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– Dwindling menus: These relics may soon follow the path of the telephone book and Britannica. Many restaurants now offer flimsy, disposable menus along with QR codes – the barcode on each table that opens an online menu on your phone.

The advantage of QR menus is that you never have to play with your thumbs waiting for a menu while a busy server pretends you are not there. But these codes often collect your data, so the next time you’re at your favorite spot, the waiter can say:

“The usual, madam? Tuna cooked to medium cooked but not too medium, or too rare, salad with only olive oil dressing on the side , along with green beans, lemon, and potatoes on a separate plate, but aren’t there two foods that touch? “

“Hmm… I see you will tip five percent. I will remember that too. “

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– Dinner time: My wife and I always made reservations for 8pm, but the pandemic and its five-month curfew changed our internal clocks. Now, we often book at 6:30 pm or earlier, and even then there is a battle for the tables by a new generation of early risers created by COVID.

The owner of the Amerigo restaurant, Marcone, says that now many people come for wine and snacks at 3:30 pm, when the room is emptiest. Throughout the city, you will see the restaurant lights go out before 9pm when our famous nightlife falls asleep.

Despite all the strange changes in restaurants, after 18 months without them, it is quite nice to be surrounded again by a room full of strangers drinking, dining and chatting, even from a distance.

So if you try one, tip well and keep our town waiters waiting. That favorite restaurant you keep could be mine.

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