Restaurants in those days were well out of reach for a DIAMOND:Double Income,Awesome Mortgage,Offspring,No Dough. These days,I’m more carefree (this is actually a lie,I’ve never been carefree but money doesn’t freak me out the way it used to).
Kylie Kwong at Billy Kwong restaurant in Surry Hills in 2004.Edwina Pickles
But in the past 12 months some of my faves have gone. Now,my absolute favouritest chef,Kylie Kwong,is shutting up shop,her affordable,delicious Lucky Kwong to close forever. She told theHerald’s Ardyn Bernoth she would take a break to.
I don’t think in Kylie Kwong’s case it’s really about the money. That woman’s got a lot of brilliant stuff going on in her life,including supporting the career of her wife,the artist Nell. For 30 years,she has done us the best possible service under pressure,and now it’s time for a break from worry about high expectations and low margins. She’s presided over Billy Kwong in two iterations,managing a dedicated fan base and her own extraordinarily high standards,through. That’s enough from anyone really.
It’s also true that the hospitality industry is in its direst predicament for decades and even the most successful restaurants have tighter margins now. Chief economist at CreditorWatch,Anneke Thompson,tells me the latest figures show just how much hospitality is struggling. Across all industries,around four businesses in every hundred will shut in a year. In hospitality right now,it’s nearly eight. That’s just about double. Thompson says consumer confidence is at an all-time low – and she doubts it can recover until we’ve seen two or three cuts to the cash rate. Plus Thompson can see it from the non-expert,real life side:“I’ve got two kids and I wonder if it’s worth spending money taking them out when it’s much cheaper to eat at home.”
But I think there is another aspect to running a restaurant today which we don’t consider. It is crushing to be in that industry. Hospitality is one of those jobs – like journalism – where you have to be on all the time. Fortunately for me,journalism doesn’t require you to be constantly charming and cheerful – I made absolutely the right career choice for my personality. Whereas in hospitality (with the possible exception of Gordon f---ing Ramsay) chefs and waiters have to put up with the way-too-picky and the terminally unkind every single day. And it turns out the customer is not always right. You want your steak burnt to a crisp? Maybe stay home and do that yourself. The occasional chefs and waiters are right to lose their minds in the face of relentless whining,and I’m surprised they don’t do it more often.
I think we customers need to be kinder people when we eat out. I have strong memories of a meal to celebrate our first wedding anniversary in 1984. We were eating at the renowned Berowra Waters Inn,having the time of our lives. The couple at the table next door did nothing but argue and then pick on the wait staff. Forty years later,just a few weeks ago,at the celebrated Muse in the Hunter Valley,the most gorgeous of places,one bloke did nothing but carp about things which were absolutely perfect for everyone but him. Take a long look at yourself,boyo. In between,I’ve overheard lots of examples of people complaining about nothing but wanting to make themselves seem important and clever.
I doubt anyone would behave like that with Kylie running the place,she’s radiant on the pass. And that vibe filters through her whole restaurant – the waiters are uniformly kind and patient even while you dither. The food is so very good,plump,juicy,filled with tangy firebombs of sharp pleasure. It will not send you broke – even if you have a second serving of dumplings.
There are plenty of fan favourites now extinguished because of financial and other pressures... in Wynyard. Beloved,where we celebrated a wedding anniversary,is about to fold. And that’s not including all the local places that aren’t headline news,places of warmth and familiarity just around the corner. A wonderful local cake shop disappeared with only a week of warning. Pubs seem to be packed but you can’t live on beer and hot chips. That only covers a couple of the food groups,if you count hops and malt as separate groups.
Three things:some of you have cash to splash. Get out there and do it before you lose your much-loved local. Get to Lucky Kwong before it closes its doors forever. And be better – kinder – humans when you eat out.
Jenna Price is a regular columnist.