Food: The Closest thing to travel

With Sydney’s lockdown continuing into the 7th week, we’re seeing social media being slammed with tunnel vision ambition of upskilling — the rise of home cooks and bakers! From the very indulgent, to the healthy one that is diabetic friendly and still delish! For some, cooking offers the safer option than ordering in or picking up take-away. Until you just can’t resist what’s suddenly available in the realm of food delivery platforms.

We’re delighted about upscale restaurants joining the delivery world! It may not be your everyday budget but good enough to plan for a lockdown birthday at home. Offerings at Providoor in Sydney include Matt Moran’s Chiswick in Woollahra, Cho Cho San in Potts Point (minus the reservation timeout) and even Neil Perry At Home – whose new Double Bay restaurant Margaret had to cancel 11,000 reservations at the beginning of the lockdown.

With covid demanding quick pivoting faster than you can say “vaccination”, we are seeing small and medium business owners leveling up in their hospitality service for survival. Take Café Rumah in Surrey Hills, for example. Known to Sydneysiders as Singaporean/Malaysian café offering modern versions of traditional classics (chicken rice and laksa amongst others), owners deliver customers’ orders arranged per area for the week, bypassing delivery fees. Starting this at last year’s lockdown in 2020, they’re continuing this tradition today.

New trends

Take away cocktails is happening, alcohol-free cocktails for grown-ups are trending and the American mochi donut trend has hit Australian shores. We now even expect our grocery delivery to be incomplete due to rising demands and limited supply. We understand, fresh food people. But we still don’t like our tomatoes to be un-Italian vacation-like.

Homeschooling is no longer new and what’s lovely to see is the rise of school-age “assistants” helping their mums with their new digital know-how, especially in Canva. Armed with their own device, we’re seeing children under 10 years old creating and printing posters and emailing custom images for friends and relatives they can’t see in real life (IRL!) A recent year 3 class assignment as a collective was compiling a book of recipes written by the students. Even a science experiment the week prior involved potatoes!

We have an inkling that the current lockdown is not going to be over in a bit. We’re also seeing more outdoor masks, surging vaccination rates and both at-home and outdoor exercises. We really are really trying not to lose their mind and all that comfort food, WFH and homeschooling need to be balanced with maintaining good health, not just avoiding covid.

We can’t cook your favourite food for you but if you have a restaurant business and need help in all things HR, we can take away your pain that comes with a pivoting business in times of lockdown. Our team of HR experts do the heavy lifting, so you can focus on running the show. Get in touch today.

Stay safe, Sydney.