A couple of weeks ago, in early June, things were looking rosy in Beijing, where I’d be living if it weren’t for the pandemic. The city hadn’t reported a single case of COVID-19 for many weeks in a row. Schools that had partially re-opened were about to re-open completely. The capital’s notoriously bad traffic had returned, and the streets were filled with cars, electric bikes, and people.
With new COVID-19 rules in place, Black Sesame Kitchen is once again accepting reservations and hoping to ensure that every experience is safe and worry-free.
Black Sesame Kitchen, the cooking school I founded in Beijing, had re-opened in mid-May after almost four months of zero income. We were doing unexpectedly good business after our imposed hibernation, even though we’d instituted new rules that limited the number of guests we could take in one seating. We’d even pinned down a date for the opening a new restaurant that we’ve been working on before the pandemic. And, best of all, I’d received news that my family and I could return to Beijing in early July. (We’ve been in the United States for the last six months.)
Then on June 11 came the news that a worker at Beijing’s largest wholesale market had come down with the coronavirus. The authorities, through contact tracing, discovered about 70 cases linked to the market. The cases have grown to more than 200 in the last couple of weeks. (Which, relatively speaking, is minuscule in comparison to our community here in the U.S.) Within a couple of days, schools were once again completely shut down, restaurants were once again empty, and the sense of normalcy that had returned to Beijing had disappeared.
There’s been reporting out of China that the outbreak had something to do with imported salmon, with evidence of the virus on cutting boards; even though that seemed to be highly unlikely to many experts, restaurants serving the fish had to dump all of their salmon. All restaurant workers, including our staff at Black Sesame Kitchen, have been given nucleic acid COVID-19 tests. (All of our results came back negative.) And prices for everything from pork to fruit have shot up dramatically, because the market linked to the outbreak supplied the capital with so much of its food.
Black Sesame Kitchen’s business has slowed again. The new restaurant’s opening is on hold. And the plans my family and I had to travel back to Beijing have also been delayed.
Though we’ve long been known for our culinary experiences in the back alleys of Beijing, Black Sesame Kitchen is promoting its in-home chef services and new delivery service in light of COVID-19.
But Black Sesame Kitchen hasn’t gone back into full hibernation, thankfully. In the last few months, we’ve re-thought our business model. Pre-pandemic, about 50% of our guests were tourists or international business travelers. With that audience completely wiped out for the foreseeable future, we’ve promoted our in-home personal chef services and we’ve also added new services, including delivery of our famous Wine n’ Dine dinners to residences in Beijing and my live stream cooking classes. Aware that restaurants are a major conduit for the coronavirus, we’re keeping close track of the number of cases in Beijing and we’ve outlined new policies for our staff and guests to follow when they come to dine with us — including suspending our communal dining experience. Now every party that books gets their own private room.
And our three weeks of amazing business between mid May and early June — that flicker of activity — is also helping us make it through this second wave of COVID-19 in Beijing. When we re-opened in May, we had no idea how many of our regular guests could come, given that many foreigners living in Beijing, a big part of our customer base, had left China and have been unable to return due to the country’s new COVID-19 travel rules that barred all foreigners from entering. We had no idea if those remaining would be willing to make the trek across town to our courtyard near the Forbidden City for a meal or a cooking class. But the fact that guests returned to our courtyard as soon as we reopened really touched Chef Zhang, our head chef and manager. “They’ve given us a vote of confidence. They believe in us,” he told me.
And nowadays, it’s that belief — that faith in our guests, in ourselves — that is often keeping us going.
Chef Zhang has even greater gratitude for every guest that has returned to our kitchen and/or signed up for our other services. We love our guests and thank you from the bottom of our hearts and woks!