Restaurants Open : Mamma Mia !

Italy is not a country of take-out food. Restaurateurs have had mixed results in the last weeks since national regulation allowed for the commerce of both delivery and take away.

While on some level, being operative has been a life saver for some restaurants — and for pastry stores, gelaterie, trattorie, pizzerie, tavola calde (rotisserie), bars, pubs — for others the transformation to a take out and delivery service has been one administrative and practical challenge after another. 

Take restaurants, where varied menus that made clients whimper with delight have been reduced to a whisper of their former selves. Specialty dishes — say, cacio e pepe, or spaghetti alle vongole or risotto with funghi porcini — were wiped right off the list as they can be eaten exclusively espresso, that is piping hot and straight from the kitchen.

Our favorite Florentine trattoria has removed their signature pappardelle alla lepre — wide egg fettuccine with a hare sauce — and told me that they hope that their room temperature soups, ragu’ and roasted meat will offer “ a gentle feast of flavors and emotions that will unveil for you a peak of paradise on Earth, while you wait to return to the actual paradise when we are really reopened”. 

In Rome, I found the owner of our neighborhood trattoria, Sandro, pacing and cursing; he used a number of expletives and then said that to settle his nerves he would go to feed his cats.   

Eating is central to the Italian.  The restaurant owner is a host.  

It is hard to feel like a host when the lasagne with artichokes — the recipe of your grandmother, and made with very special violetta artichokes — goes out the restaurant kitchen door in an aluminum ready-to-warm plate carried by a delivery boy in a paper mask and rubber gloves.

Some restaurant owners have with verve and charm thrown themselves into the act — including in your order a bouquet of fresh flowers, complimentary pastries or a facial mask with the restaurant’s insignia on them — but those I know are exhausted, demoralized, and deeply concerned about the economics and logistics that are ahead.

As of Monday, May 18, all restaurants, trattorie, pizzerie, tavola calda (rotisserie), bars, pubs, pastry shops and gelaterie may reopen.  Stores and hair salons are also being allowed to open as the government further eases one of the world’s strictest coronavirus lockdowns, saying this is a “calculated risk” to put the country back on its feet.  Alto Adige already jumped the gun ten days ago, but the governor of the Campania region, De Luca, breaking from all of his fellows, says that his region (which includes Naples, Pompeii, Capri, Amalfi and Salerno) is absolutely not opening yet as hospitals will be unable to deal effectively with any resultant surge of positive cases.  “Niente pizza fuori !  Non ancora ! “ (“No pizza out !  Not yet !“)

Meanwhile trattoria owner Sandro in Rome is back from feeding the cats. He is drinking a Campari Soda as he recites the review of what is needed.  

“Every food business must make hand sanitizer visible and available. Bathrooms must be regularly sanitized. Air filtering and air conditioning systems must meet specified criteria. In restaurants, clients are urge to reserve — a good thing as there will now be many less tables.  The restaurant must keep a list of clients, with their phone numbers, for 14 days.

Gone are the lovely self serve antipasto tables…

and dessert tables that were such a joy to help yourself from, or to hang over as you made your choice.

 
Each table will be disinfected after the service. The use of reusable objects and containers by different customers, such as the olive oil bottle or salt, should be avoided as much as possible. As for the menus, several solutions are recommended: use of disposable paper menus, use of laminated paper menus to be disinfected after each use or use of digital menus that customers can consult online on their mobile phones.” (This last one sent Sandro again into a fit of expletives.) 

“Service staff who work in contact with customers will wear masks and wash their hands frequently with alcohol solutions; in particular they will have to sanitize their hands before each new table service.  Customers must wear masks that may be removed only when they are sitting at a table or eating at a counter.”

The most difficult part comes next. “Customers — excepting those who cohabit — must be seated at least one meter from each other.  This distance may be less if adequate physical barriers (for example a plexiglass screen) are placed between the tables to prevent potential contagions transmitted through droplets of saliva.  

Outdoor space is a bonanza — sidewalks, gardens and terraces — but here too a minimum of one meter must divide all non cohabiting customers.

Il conto ?  This should be paid at the table and preferably electronically.  The cashier, if equipped with a physical barrier screen, wearing a mask and with a reserve of hand sanitizing gel available, may also accept payment.

Food business owners can at their discretion measure customers’ temperature. They must deny access to their locales of anyone with a registered temperature of 37.5 ° C or higher. 

Cooks and dishwashers must be masked and gloved at all times.  A nightmare in a hot kitchen — and summer is on its way.”

“And there’s more”, says Sandro.  “In the bar, where you go for the coffee after lunch in my trattoria.  Consumption at the counter is allowed only when there is an interpersonal distance of at least one meter between customers. ” (The classic Italian cafe bar scene of pre COVID — a companionable jostle around the counter — would mean a staggering fine for the owner and closure of the bar.)

“Excluded of course from the one meter distance are cohabitants. Customers are expected to be truthful and responsible in self determining whether they do or not not fall into the one meter distancing category.

In for example a pizzeria with pizza-by-the-slice where there are no seats, a limited number of customers may enter, with the number based on the size of the store. A minimum of one meter between customers must be maintained. And again everyone must be masked.

As he finishes this lengthy dialogue, Sandro sits down for a minute, looking dazed.  Then he says : “Madonna“.  He repeats it again : “Madonna“. And then he goes out to his car to bring in a large box of artichokes.  

“Domani, se Dio Vuole, da me si mangia. ” And he waves me away and goes into the kitchen, carrying the artichokes. “Tomorrow, God Wiling, you will eat at my restaurant.”  

May it be.