What does a critic do when her genre collapses? Mostly I panic. I speak to restaurateurs who believe that without government help into 2022, many British restaurants will close.
Most restaurants rent their premises; even if landlords defer collection, the debt will be unpayable. Most restaurants operate on slender margins; they cannot secure finance even in happy times. It is a scandal that the government has excluded monies from the service charge ‘tronc fund’ from the 80 per cent calculations in the Job Retention Scheme, even though it has received National Insurance contributions on it for years, and many restaurant staff are getting only 40 per cent of their earnings.
Restaurants predict a summer slaughter. What will survive? That is easy: the cheapest and the most expensive; the inedible and the vulgar. The middle, though, will collapse. Almost every restaurant I love is in the middle, because that is where taste lies.
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