Once upon a time, John Cleese asked: “If God did not intend for us to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat?” Which of course, implies a belief in the heavenly father if you were to use this to make a point. Denis Leary kept it broad with “Not eating meat is a decision. Eating meat is an instinct” – one of his tamer quotes on the matter, even when taking satire into consideration, and Leary has never shied away from being confrontational and controversial – while the ever-opinionated Fran Lebowitz said, “Vegetables are interesting but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat.”
Having first visited Makers Landing in August 2020, when it was a construction site requiring great imagination to visualise the end result, it was heartening to return in February 2021 to witness the dreams come to life.
It is part of the cruise ship terminal – that part is still in the future – but the space has come to life pretty much as project manager West Wilkinson outlined it last year. There are on-site artisans baking and brewing, a sit-down restaurant, a huge bar and seating area (destined to become a market), pods selling cheeses and chicken wings, a demo kitchen and an incubator which is nurturing new food entrepreneurs.
The first rule of 2021, they say, is never talk about 2020. Those who survived it will know it was craziness upon madness on top of incredulity wrapped up in WTF. And a week into this new year it already looks like it’s a case of “here, hold my beer” along with a dramatic eye-rolling “bitch, please”. Every morning the news has me muttering Dorothy Parker’s words: “What fresh hell is this?”
The archives are crammed with stories about what the hospitality and restaurant industries endured, and the wild Coronacoaster they rode throughout various levels of lockdown and restrictions in 2020. Battered and bruised, restaurateurs picked themselves up and reinvented their offerings in an attempt to stave off total disaster. Not all of them made it.