“If you’re 22, physically fit, and hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel as far and as wide as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and work.” The preceding are the late chef Anthony Bourdain’s words to live by. As for me, although no longer 22, I continue to benefit from a lifetime of regular exercise. Over the years I’ve discovered an unforgettable thing or two, none truer than that travel offers the best opportunities to sample new dishes prepared by the people that originally created them.
Alas, thanks to COVID-19 most of us have been forced to put travel on hold. My last flight out of Saint Lucia landed me in Morocco, where I had a wonderful time patronizing rooftop restaurants, markets laden with olives, nuts, spices, herbs, fruits, exotic oils, so reminiscent of my childhood in Lebanon—ever dependent on tourist trade. COVID-19 continues to cripple the economies of countries the world over, in particular of tiny ones like ours. During our lockdown I learned to prepare two or three dishes. Nothing fancy, you understand.
Cooking was never on my list of favorite pastimes. And that’s not about to change, thanks to Adil Sherwani’s Spice of India. It started with that first phone call: “Hi Adil, I’m not in the mood for cooking today. Can you fix me a little something vegetarian? Can I pick it up, say, in 20 minutes?” I’ve always loved Indian food. But Adil’s dishes are to die for. They’re just so much more flavorful, more aromatic than any Indian I’ve previously sampled. A perfect blend of Indian and Saint Lucian—at once exotic and local. That his wife is Saint Lucian may have something to do with that. As for Adil, he first came here back in the late 90s and fell in love—with both the girl he would marry and her home island.
The first time I dropped by I almost cried. The restaurant was eerily quiet, empty, chairs stacked one on top the other, some on the deserted tables. As I waited to be handed my order a favorite song came to mind, one line in particular: “There is a grief that can’t be spoken/There’s a pain that goes on and on/Empty chairs and empty tables . . . “ As for Adil, the mask he wore as he welcomed me seemed to emphasize the sadness in his eyes. We chatted about the almost identical effects of the pandemic on our businesses and private lives, our families. It occurred to me that with all its associated miseries Covid-19 was not without its lessons. For one, it has taught us how vulnerable we all are, regardless of status, how dependent we are on one another, regardless of our occupations.
When an establishment is forced even temporarily to shut down, there are not so obvious consequences. Employees and suppliers are immediately impacted. So are their dependents. In Adil’s situation: “I’ve had to cut my staff from 24 to just 4. I’ve shut down our Marigot restaurant. Even with a break on rent, still it’s almost impossible to cover operating expenses. Sales are way down 60—80%. We’ve tried to be innovative. We’ve changed our menus, reduced working hours. We’ve even redesigned the premises to include partitions that permit social distancing. We have outdoor dining. Of course seat capacity is automatically affected. I work the floor myself. I miss the normal hustle and bustle, the interaction with regular patrons. But perhaps most of all I miss my staff, my team.”
With visitors forced by the pandemic to stay in their own countries, local taxi drivers have been forced to seek alternative sources of income. In small islands such as Saint Lucia a mission impossible. It has been brought forcefully home to all of us that when one business fails, big or small, other businesses feel the reverberations.
Call me a romantic if you will. I believe small businesses, the independently owned husband and wife or single parent operations, are what keep the private sector’s heart beating. I am not a big fan of chains, whatever their business. Their raison d’être has little to do with the local community. Usually their main concern is the interest of their non-resident shareholders. It is in our own collective interest to choose carefully where we spend our dollars. COVID-19 has reminded us yet again that we who live and work here are one family—and charity must begin at home.
I chose to focus here on restaurants because they are our go-to places to mingle, to drink (sometimes more than is good for us) with friends, to forget, if only for a couple hours the stresses that have become the new normal. Yes, sometimes we find a quiet corner to cry on a friend’s shoulder. Patronizing your favorite restaurant is finally less about eating than it is about celebrating life and love and different cultures. I did not set out to write about Adil or Spice of India. But that recalled recent visit to pick up my vegetarian takeaway made me appreciate more than ever the invisible links that bind us together, regardless of who we are and what we must do together in the name of survival!
Call (758) 458 4243 or (758) 716 0820 to order or book a table.
