Food & Drink

Eating Out (and In): As 2022 dawns, hospitality is still fighting Covid-19 uncertainties

The effort to support and encourage suppliers, as well as the quality of the cooking and overall experience, make Blank well worthy of the attention it has garnered. Owners Jonny and Christina Taylor are pictured with general manager Alex Daley and head chef Niall Duffy.
The effort to support and encourage suppliers, as well as the quality of the cooking and overall experience, make Blank well worthy of the attention it has garnered. Owners Jonny and Christina Taylor are pictured with general manager Alex Daley and head c The effort to support and encourage suppliers, as well as the quality of the cooking and overall experience, make Blank well worthy of the attention it has garnered. Owners Jonny and Christina Taylor are pictured with general manager Alex Daley and head chef Niall Duffy.

UNCERTAINTY reigns as we head into 2022, because of course it does.

The year just finished began with the shutters down on hospitality. A total lockdown, inside, outside, everywhere, was in place and wouldn't be lifted until the last day of April.

Things approached normal for the sector, at least in terms of actually being allowed to operate, although the problems of making up for lost trade while implementing restrictions, encouraging people back through the doors and, crucially, actually finding enough staff, meant that 'normal' was only really a pipe dream, however much people did eagerly return to what they had missed for much of half the year.

The emergence of the Omicron variant and the implementation of Covid/vaccine status checks came at the worst possible time with Christmas ahead, and there’s nothing to say that restrictions brought in earlier this week won’t be followed by more. If that happens, hospitality will be hoping that further government support follows the package announced last month, which is the least the battered sector should expect and deserve.

So for a portion of the year, as it had been in 2020, Eating Out became Eating In, with every review published until May describing a takeaway. The range and quality of those takeaways were a demonstration of the adaptability of restaurants, with only a few having offered such an option before they were forced to by coronavirus.

Some tweaked their usual fare. Deanes provided the chance to sprinkle some Michelin stardust at home - their 2020 New Year's Eve box let you do your best not to make a mess of a collaboration between Eipic's Alex Greene and Malachy McCafferty from Deane's at Queen's.

With Covid restrictions making eating in the new eating out, Deanes offered a takeaway box sprinkled with some Michelin stardust - as well as mash buttery enough to spread on toast.
With Covid restrictions making eating in the new eating out, Deanes offered a takeaway box sprinkled with some Michelin stardust - as well as mash buttery enough to spread on toast. With Covid restrictions making eating in the new eating out, Deanes offered a takeaway box sprinkled with some Michelin stardust - as well as mash buttery enough to spread on toast.

The smoothest of chicken liver parfaits thankfully only needed put on a plate. There was more jeopardy with the sirloin and rib of beef, with mash buttery enough to spread on toast, but it all came together and made for a genuinely memorable new year.

Others diversified, like Danny Millar's Stock above St George's Market, which as well as continuing to offer meals in the vein of the one from Deane's just described, branched out into pizza, with Sour Bake, which immediately laid down a marker as some of the best in Belfast, a city with more that its share of outstanding pizza options.

Danny Millar was one of many restaurateurs to diversify during the pandemic, branching out into pizza.
Danny Millar was one of many restaurateurs to diversify during the pandemic, branching out into pizza. Danny Millar was one of many restaurateurs to diversify during the pandemic, branching out into pizza.

Others found opportunity during lockdown. With the restaurants she had worked in closed, Zahara Hundito started to cook the food of her native Ethiopia in her Belfast home and turned it into a thriving takeaway business, providing superb curries, brilliantly vibrant vegetables dishes, and bouncy injera flatbread. Literally, as the kids say, A Taste of Ethiopia

.

Addis Ababa woman Zahara Hundito and her husband Mohammednur opened Taste of Ethiopia from their Belfast home.
Addis Ababa woman Zahara Hundito and her husband Mohammednur opened Taste of Ethiopia from their Belfast home. Addis Ababa woman Zahara Hundito and her husband Mohammednur opened Taste of Ethiopia from their Belfast home.

Some restaurants that had closed at the end of 2020 never opened their doors again, but even in the most trying circumstances imaginable, there were new openings that made big splashes.

Eddie Fung, whose Zen rolls along as an ever-popular Asian fusion delivery system, took the formula and applied it to small plates, bao buns and, well, dumplings at Dumpling Library in Belfast's St Anne's Square. The quality of everything sang out, but the fried aubergine in yellow bean sauce was something of a minor miracle.

The fried aubergine in yellow bean sauce from Dumpling Library was something of a minor miracle.
The fried aubergine in yellow bean sauce from Dumpling Library was something of a minor miracle. The fried aubergine in yellow bean sauce from Dumpling Library was something of a minor miracle.

The conceit of Blank on the Malone Road in Belfast secured it a remarkable amount of publicity for what was, at the end of the day, another restaurant opening.

A restaurant with no menu - just a selection of seasonal ingredients with the big reveal when the plates hit the table - but both the effort to support and encourage suppliers, as well as the quality of the cooking and overall experience, make it well worthy of the attention.

The Olderfleet, right beside Larne harbour, offers the finest pub food this side of the sea border.
The Olderfleet, right beside Larne harbour, offers the finest pub food this side of the sea border. The Olderfleet, right beside Larne harbour, offers the finest pub food this side of the sea border.

The Olderfleet, right beside Larne harbour, refurbished during lockdowns and came out of them with a new chef and the finest pub food this side of the sea border. Pub food is possibly a disservice with Pol Shields overseeing a kitchen turning out huge plates of spankingly fresh seafood, solid classics like gammon steak and egg, and a chowder to sell your soul for.

What 2022 brings for these great places, and everyone else, remains to be seen.

Uncertainty reigns, because of course it does.