How the Pandemic Has Given Rise to Virtual Restaurants in Chicago
These restaurateurs are hustling in the age of coronavirus
(Below is a selection of my new feature from Eater Chicago. Follow the link below to read the entire story | Photo courtesy of Bianca’s Burgers)
Instagram isn’t immune to the public health crisis: The halcyon days of scrolling through food porn have disappeared as indoor dining restrictions have kept diners at home. As many influencers have quieted their accounts, a corps of cooks and entrepreneurs in Chicago have seized the opportunity to use the platforms to introduce their pop-ups to a crop of new customers.
In the past, chefs like Jasmine Sheth may have used social media to generate awareness of their businesses. But now, the Instagram page for Sheth’s Tasting India — her Andersonville ghost kitchen — links to a Google document where its weekly menu can be viewed, and she uses the page to communicate directly with and take orders from customers. “The pandemic has changed everything,” she says. “Nothing is the same as it was before.”
“Online has really been a lifeline for a lot of businesses like mine,” Sheth continues. “At the same time, it’s not enough to advertise on social media. You need to nurture relationships within the industry.”
Sheth grew up in Mumbai and lived in New Jersey before moving to New York. She ended up in Chicago and worked at several Boka Restaurant Group venues, like GT Fish & Oyster and Momotaro. She’s not interested in fusion, unlike, say, Vermillion, the River North restaurant that meshes Indo and Latin flavors. At Tasting India, she focuses on specific regions of India with a menu that rotates weekly. That’s something the U.S. lacks.
“When I go to Indian restaurants here, it’s not the food I grew up with on a day-to-day basis, not the one I experienced when I traveled around the country visiting family. It certainly does not represent all of the regional cuisines and so many specialties that even Indians ourselves are sometimes not aware of,” she says.
Crucially, Tasting India makes high-end and regionally specific food a bit more accessible: “I want to make this cuisine accessible,” Sheth says. “When you take that high-end, fine dining approach, I feel to a certain degree that you have to give up on accessibility. Not everyone can afford a $150 prix fixe deal.
“I have to put more thought into if it’s something I want to do, but with Tasting India, accessibility and spreading awareness and knowledge is important. At the same time, I also want to break the stereotype of Indian food merely being a cheap $15.99 buffet. I don’t want to perpetuate that stereotype.”
Thus far, Sheth has been surprised by how well her Tasting India Instagram business has been received, as well as just how much there is to do when one turns from a traditional restaurant kitchen model to a one-woman-shop…
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