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HEIKRUIS, Belgium: When the Friday night dinner service began earlier this month at the De Viering restaurant on the outskirts of Brussels, it seemed like the owners’ decision to move the operation to the spacious village church to meet with the coronavirus rules it was paying off. The reservation book was full and the kitchen was full.
And then the prime minister of Belgium ordered cafes, bars and restaurants to close for at least a month amid rising infections.
“It’s another shock, of course, because, yes, all the investments are made,” said chef Heidi Vanhasselt. She and her husband, sommelier Christophe Claes, had installed a kitchen and new bathrooms at the San Bernardo church in Heikruis, as well as committing to paying 10 months rent and devoting energy to creative solutions.
Vanhasselt’s frustration is that of Europe, as the resurgence of the coronavirus is dealing a second blow to restaurants on the continent, which already suffered lockdowns in the spring. From Northern Ireland to the Netherlands, European governments have closed restaurants or severely restricted their operation.
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More than jobs and income are at stake: restaurants are the heart of European life. Their closures threaten the social fabric by closing down places where neighbors mingle, extended families meet, and the seeds of new families are sown.
A restaurant is still “a place where very special moments are celebrated,” said Griet Grassin of the Italian restaurant Tartufo on the outskirts of Brussels. “It’s not just food, it’s wellness.”
This time around, the closures are particularly painful because they can extend into the holiday season, eliminating everything from office drinks before the holidays to a special meal of the day.
When it comes to purely calories and vitamins, “of course we can live without restaurants,” said food history professor Peter Scholliers.
But he asked, “Can we live without being social? No, we can’t.”
Successful restaurants have always had to adapt quickly, but there has never been a challenge like this.
The European Union said the hotel and restaurant industry suffered a staggering 79.3 percent drop in production between February and April. Try to recover from that.
Summer, with its drop in COVID-19 cases and a faltering return to travel, brought a respite, especially in coastal resorts.
But then autumn came. Any vertigo that the consequences of the pandemic might somehow contain was faced with the sad reality of the relentless increase in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations.
Overall, COVID-19 has killed more than 240,000 people across Europe. Government leaders now warn that things will get worse before they get better.
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But many restaurant owners have been enraged by the new round of restrictions, and some openly defy them.
In London last week, prominent chef Yotam Ottolenghi hit pots on the street to protest restrictions that include earlier closing times.
“It is really difficult, we have a great industry with a lot of heart,” said Ottolenghi. “And there are so many people who depend on him.”
If the mood of any nation is determined by its stomach, surely that of France is. And it’s turning as sour as a rhubarb tart. The streets of Paris, the culinary capital of Lyon, and several other French cities were eerily empty at night for the first week of the 9 p.m. curfew scheduled to last at least a month.
Xavier Denamur, owner of five Parisian cafes and bistros that employ about 70 workers, said the French government is unfairly punishing the industry.
“It’s a catastrophic move,” he said, arguing that any curfew should be postponed to at least 11 pm to allow for adequate dinner service.
In Italy, a late-night curfew went into effect in Milan, and even that sparked protests.
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Still, highlighting how the world is making its way in near darkness, restaurant and food delivery business owner Matteo Lorenzon argued otherwise. “Having a curfew from 11 pm, it is too late.”
As early as September, more than 400,000 restaurant and cafe employees in Italy, a nation of 60 million, were unemployed, according to an estimate by Fipe, the restaurant lobby group. His prediction for the next few months was even more dire: “Hundreds of thousands of jobs are at risk of being permanently eliminated.”
In the Netherlands, which has one of the highest virus infection rates in Europe, more than 60 Dutch bars and restaurants tried to overturn a month-long shutdown order, but failed. Lawyer Simon van Zijll, a representative for bars and restaurants, warned that the Dutch hotel industry is facing “a wave of bankruptcies.”
The first closure of spring caught the owners of Tartufo, the restaurant on the outskirts of Brussels, by surprise.
This time, Grassin and her husband, Chef Kayes Ghourabi, were ready: They will improve their takeaway service and even offer their own Mediterranean spiced gin. Still, revenue will drop 70-80%.
“We lose, but it helps costs. Electricity, insurance that continues to work, even in a confinement,” he said.
Across Europe, the stories are the same: chefs who think creatively, make something out of a bad situation, show resilience to save something they often build from scratch.
“I have a son and I always tell my husband: ‘The restaurant was our first child.’ And you want to fight for it, “Grassin said.
Take-out is also a lifesaver for Paolo Polli, who owned five bars and restaurants in Milan before closing four recently. Its staff was reduced from 60 to six. He said he made more money closing his pizza delivery service than when it reopened for regular service.
In the south, a pleasant drop offered a respite, allowing restaurants to serve on outdoor terraces.
Despite this, in Portugal, the restaurant association AHRESP said that restaurants lost more than half of their income. Now cold weather, stronger winds and rain are forcing everyone back indoors, where the virus spreads more easily.
“It will be impossible,” said Artur Veloso, who runs the Risca restaurant in Carcavelos. “Winter will bring more ruin.”
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