Foodnews

Ridiculous: hotel restaurants now have to close too

uit eten mondkapje

Hotel restaurants, once the neglected stepchild of the hospitality industry, suddenly became the only places where we could still eat out. And completely safely, too! The only downside was actually an advantage: you had to stay the night. But now you can only stay the night, because the hotel restaurants and bars are closed too. I seriously wonder: why?!

Foto van culinair journalist Sharon van Lokhorst

Last Friday, I had the best start to a weekend in ages: I went for dinner and stayed the night at the iconic Hotel De Draak in Bergen op Zoom (the oldest hotel in the Netherlands, more on that later!) It was a mini-party in every respect, except that it was a fairly small-scale party (30 people), no alcohol was served after eight p.m., and everyone went to their rooms at ten p.m. I didn’t encounter anyone within a radius of one and a half metres, apart from the person at my own table.

Not how I normally go out for dinner, but hey, we were out for dinner and it was amazing!! WAS. Because although hotels are allowed to remain open, they have to close their restaurants and are not allowed to offer room service. Why? It’s safe there! Just as it was safe in the hospitality industry—much safer than in many other places—which only had to close their doors last night.

Symbolic politics at its finest

The closure of bars and restaurants in hotels is ‘the ultimate example of symbolic politics’, according to Koninklijke Horeca Nederland (KHN), which also responded to the new lockdown measures. ‘Once again, the hospitality industry is being hit. This time, hotels are being hit hard,’ the trade association told hospitality trade magazine Misset Horeca. KHN says that the hospitality industry is actually safe.

It’s a huge blow for hotels, but also for restaurants—which have already been hit so hard. Chefs from closed restaurants were increasingly finding their way to a great collab with hotels, after all.

Wagyu at home, then?

It’s another very bitter pill to swallow for hospitality suppliers, too. The opening of hotel restaurants had finally given them some income to help compensate, at least somewhat, for this lousy year. Take hospitality-industry meat jeweller Nice to Meat, for example, which had reserved a large number of special ‘cuts’ in its dry-aging room for Christmas packages at hotels. If you want exclusive restaurant-quality meat on your plate this Christmas, this is your chance: from traditional roulades to exclusive Japanese Wagyu, you can now order it here. That way, every downside becomes an advantage for some individuals, but it’s sad nonetheless…

Should the hotel restaurants reopen their doors in January, we have a few great suggestions for you (see below).

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