The pandemic has exacerbated all of the above. When restaurants shut down or scaled back for so many months, that “cheap labour”—the absurdly talented chefs, sous and servers—had no choice but to leave the industry for other work, and after they got out, they didn’t come back. Now there aren’t enough qualified workers to fill vital roles, and the industry is reeling.
Diners don’t witness any of this chaos when they sit down for a meal. I certainly didn’t. But all that anxiety resides in the back of house, in servers’ minds and in owners’ nightmares.
Leading the charge for answers was Rebecca Fleming, a brilliant journalist who has been with the magazine for eight years and who recently became our Food and Drink editor. She’s the kind of inquisitive, unflappable, encyclopedic-minded person you want on a project as sprawling as this one. She led a team of reporters who called up as many food insiders as possible and extracted their wisdom. The results were innovative and practicable.
with minimal effort. The industry would improve overnight, benefiting beleaguered chefs and staff but also every Torontonian who winces whenever a beloved haunt closes up.