“La Casa del Alimento es un no-restaurante (an anti-restaurant),” Chef Nestor Jerez says, sipping his cocktail as we settle down for a chat on a Tuesday afternoon post-lunch service. We sit at a wooden table on colorfully mismatching chairs, amid photographs and prints by artists across Colombia, and beautifully melodic Spanish drifting from the kitchen. Indeed, the space feels less like a restaurant, and more like a home in the Medellín neighborhood. In my lunch experience a few days prior, made memorable by the server who patiently taught me about native produce and graced me with endless samples of their fermentation projects, I had felt not like a client, but embraced like a friend. While after a delicious meal, one might leave the restaurant impressed, or even inspired, I had left La Casa del Alimento feeling like a very small part of a moving, breathing thing, like I had been granted a glimpse into the lives of the people in the community.

Almost a year ago, I embarked on a mission to learn from people around the world who are reimagining what a restaurant could be.

COVID brought forward overdue conversations not only on health systems, but also on the dining scene. For centuries, the inner workings of restaurants had largely been shrouded in mystery, but shut down after shut down during the pandemic shed light on the structural issues of the industry. From whistleblowers, journalists, and television shows, we learned about staffing shortages brought about in large part by toxic work culture and low wages, the economic hardships of even high end restaurants, and sourcing and food waste concerns.

As historian Rebecca Spang explains, the first restaurants with menus and waiters came about in late 18th century Paris. “Restaurant” was originally the name for a soup, served to tired workers to restore their energy. This soon evolved, giving rise to historic establishments like Méot and Les Trois Frères. With their silver cutlery and extensive menus, they helped cement the idea that a restaurant centers around its clients, and the more luxury it offers, the better, an idea still presisting today. The last decade saw a wave of farm to table and other socially and environmentally-conscious restaurants around the world, but if these issues were built into the structure of the industry, I wondered if more needed to change— that the very concept of the restaurant could be rethought, and its priorities reconfigurated, to fundamentally tackle these systemic failings.