There is no such thing as a restaurant, really. It’s all just people. Anything else is just a diversion or a prank.
Before I was in the restaurant industry, this hadn’t really occurred to me. We’re so used to thinking of restaurants as a faceless “experience” controlled by an unseen hand, of which we stand in judgment; just as we’re used to food appearing magically, cello-wrapped, in the supermarket aisle. The revelation of my working at the Linkery is that every detail of what’s on your plate is nothing but people.
What we experience at any restaurant are the choices and values of the people who raise the food, who distribute the food, who purchase the food, who cook the food, who serve it. And, for that matter, the people who decide how much reverb to add to the guitar track on the song that’s playing. And the people who load the CD player.
A business made up of nothing but people is a lot like a person. Strengths, weaknesses, better and worse moments, change and growth over time (or, in some cases, stagnation). And always different.
Sometimes I laugh at my younger dining self: how I could eat at a new place, and if an item was prepared poorly, write it off as a bad establishment. Hypercritical on the first date. Or conversely, fall in love with a place after one spectacular meal only to discover later that I wasn’t much interested, long term. Easily carried away. It’s all people — them and me. Unsurprising that we’d misunderstand each other.
A few months ago, I ate at a place where most of my meal was misprepared and took an eternity to arrive. Meanwhile I appreciated the values of the people there, and was happy to be a part of it. When I next returned, I had a great meal and a wonderful experience. Is this a good restaurant or a bad restaurant? Neither. It’s a group of people.
Enjoy a dish now; enjoy it later. It won’t be the same, it can’t be. We’re modern consumers used to complete gratification: of course we’ll want the exact same flavor, over and over again, whatever the place or season. But — no matter how many animals we cage indoors, no matter how much we regulate their feed, and no matter how we modify the seeds of our crops, every morsel is a slave to time and climate and, most importantly, people.
At Laja, the group of people directly affecting your meal is so small that you can literally count them. They could all eat there at the same time. In the industrial food chain, the number of people affecting the food staggers comprehension. How many shareholders of Monsanto! But even then, your meal is nothing but people.
Every bite and every sip is communion. We can savor the texture and taste, get to know the people. They’re there, on our plates, in our glasses. Behind the grill and driving a truck. Taking your order. Repairing a fence.
American Flatbread Company in Los Alamos — or, more accurately, the people who are this company — put it simply: food remembers. “From local soil into local hands to our hearth, Food Remembers the acts of the hands and hearts.”
It’s not where we eat. It’s with whom we dine.