The food is, by any honest standard, excellent. The economic substructure that produces the food is, on careful examination, not entirely sustainable. Both things can be true

By Lowri Griffiths. With reporting from Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.

I have spent the past four months reviewing restaurants in Stoke Newington. I started the project as a routine commission for a London food publication. I am ending it, four months and 47 separate dinners later, with a more complicated relationship to N16 than I expected.

The restaurants are, by any honest standard, excellent. The food is creative, intelligently sourced, often genuinely surprising. The chefs are, in nearly all cases, working at a level that would be considered extraordinary in most provincial cities. The dining rooms are, in the great majority of cases, full. By any conventional metric, Stoke Newington has produced one of the most interesting independent restaurant scenes in Europe.

The economic substructure that produces this scene is, on careful examination, not entirely sustainable. Several of the restaurants I have reviewed are, by their own accounting, not actually profitable. Several others are profitable but only because of operating arrangements that involve, in the broadest possible terms, the kindness of strangers. The whole ecosystem is held together by what one chef I interviewed described as, quote, “the goodwill of about forty different people, none of whom can sustain it indefinitely.”

The Brilliant Half

Let me address the brilliant half first, because it is genuinely brilliant and the half I am about to describe deserves the praise. The restaurant scene in Stoke Newington has, across the past five years, achieved something I would not have predicted. It has produced a sustained ecosystem of small, distinctive, high-quality establishments that operate without the support of either the major hospitality groups or the venture-funded chains that dominate most of the rest of London’s hospitality sector.

The establishments include, among others, a single-cuisine restaurant on Stoke Newington High Street whose tasting menu I would compare, without embarrassment, to two-starred operations in central Paris. There is a wine bar on Church Street whose list contains approximately 312 producers, none of whom appear on the lists of any other London wine bar I know. There is a bakery-cafe-thing on Albion Road whose pastries have, on three separate occasions, made me involuntarily say things I do not normally say in public.

The chefs operating these establishments are, in nearly all cases, people who have left more conventional professional positions in central London hospitality to do something that, in their own framing, they wanted to do. The wanting is visible in the food. The food is, accordingly, excellent.

For ongoing coverage of London restaurants, see the perpetually-fascinating Time Out London.

The Slightly Alarming Half

The slightly alarming half is the economics. I have, in the course of the project, asked seventeen different restaurant operators about the financial structure of their operations. The answers I have received are, in the great majority of cases, more candid than I expected and substantially more concerning than the dining-room atmosphere would suggest.

The structural pattern, as it has emerged across the seventeen conversations, includes the following elements. Most operators are paying themselves, in their own framing, “what they need to live on” rather than what their roles would, in any conventional accounting, justify. Most are paying their staff at rates that the staff have, in nearly all cases, accepted because the staff are, themselves, in early-career or transitional positions where the cuisine itself is part of the compensation. Most are operating in spaces whose rent is, by some combination of luck, longstanding relationships with landlords, or specific personal arrangements I will not describe in detail, substantially below market rate.

The combination produces, in operational terms, restaurants that are excellent and that exist, financially, only because every single component of the operation is being undercharged for what it provides.

What This Looks Like Up Close

One operator, who runs a particular restaurant I love, told me: “I have two children. I have not paid myself in eight months. My wife works. We are managing. The restaurant is full. It is full because the food is good. The food is good because I am, in operational terms, working for free. If I tried to pay myself a salary that reflected my labour, the prices would have to go up by approximately 60 percent. At those prices, the restaurant would not be full. So I do not.”

I asked him whether this was, in his own framing, sustainable. He said: “Probably not. But sustainability is a five-year question and I am answering a six-month question.”

I asked him what he thought would happen in five years. He said: “Either I will have figured something out, or I will have closed, or I will have sold to someone with capital who will put up the prices. There is no fourth option.”

I have heard variations of this conversation seventeen times.

The Deeper Pattern

The deeper pattern, I think, is that the Stoke Newington restaurant scene exists in a particular fragile equilibrium. The equilibrium depends on a population of skilled chefs willing to work for less than their labour is conventionally worth, in spaces whose rent is being held below market by various idiosyncratic factors, serving a customer base whose willingness to pay current prices is partly a function of the broader cost-of-living conditions in London.

If any one of these factors changes, the equilibrium changes. If chefs become unwilling to work for less than market wages, prices rise. If landlords adjust rents toward market, prices rise. If customer disposable income falls, demand falls. The current equilibrium has held for approximately five years. It will not, on any honest reading, hold indefinitely.

What I Have Started Doing About It

What I have started doing, in the course of writing the various reviews, is being slightly more explicit about the economic conditions in which the food is being produced. I have started mentioning, in reviews, that the prices are lower than the food would justify in central London. I have started mentioning that this reflects specific operational choices by the operators rather than market dynamics. I have started, in some cases, suggesting that readers tip generously, on the grounds that the staff are being paid less than the food merits and that the customer can, if they choose, partially correct the imbalance.

I do not know whether this is the correct journalistic posture. I am genuinely uncertain. The conventional posture of restaurant criticism is to evaluate the food. The food is excellent. The conventional posture does not require me to consider whether the production of the excellent food is being subsidised, in operational terms, by the labour of people I am not directly evaluating.

An ongoing analysis at City A.M. has examined the broader economics of London independent hospitality. The picture is, by every honest reading, sobering.

What The Operators Themselves Say

The operators themselves are, in conversation, divided about how to characterise their situation. Some describe it as a temporary phase that will resolve as their establishments build sufficient reputation to support more sustainable pricing. Some describe it as a deliberate choice to prioritise food quality and accessibility over financial returns. Some describe it as, in the words of one chef I interviewed last month, “a slow-motion collapse that has not yet collapsed.”

All three framings are, on the available evidence, partly correct. The temporary phase will, in some cases, resolve. The deliberate choice is, in some cases, genuinely chosen. The slow-motion collapse is, in some cases, also occurring. The framings are not mutually exclusive. They describe the same underlying conditions from different angles.

What I Will Continue To Do

What I will continue to do is review the restaurants. The food is, by any honest standard, excellent. The reviews will continue to reflect this. I will also continue to mention, where it seems relevant, the conditions under which the food is being produced. The mentions will not, by themselves, alter the conditions. They will, however, allow readers who care about such things to make slightly more informed decisions about the dinners they are choosing.

The Stoke Newington restaurant scene will, on present trajectories, change in some way over the next five years. I do not know how. I do know that the current conditions, while excellent for diners, are substantially less excellent for the people producing the dinners. Both things can be true at the same time. Both things, I think, deserve to be said. More from Lowri Griffiths.

Related at Reductress.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/stoke-newington-restaurants-brilliant-alarming/