Chef and Darjeeling Express founder Asma Khan sheds light on a restaurant team as family

When we reopened our restaurant, post-Covid, in 2021, we had a mix of experienced and inexperienced front of house team members. I was fortunate to have the same kitchen team I began with in 2012. In the early days, the students we recruited to FOH were a source of joy and despair in equal measure.

For many, it was their first job, and learning was required. Even with two boys of my own at home I was still unprepared for the over-the-top enthusiasm and random decisions of youth. The early days were a scramble and restrictions like the curfew made things even harder. And so staff meals and birthday celebrations became an important anchor in bringing the team together.

Things started to get better after a few weeks of opening – there was laughter and smiles after service, and less unreliability. The first time some of the team could travel back to their families after travel restrictions were lifted, many returned with gifts of food made by their mothers. Instead of just me asking the team if they were happy, they often asked me if I was happy.

The night before the start of Ramadan, one of the women in the kitchen asked me where the FOH members observing were going to break their fast. The end of the fast was in the middle of peak dinner service, and she wanted to know where she had to set out the iftar (the meal at sunset). I was confused, because I presumed it was just going to be two members of my team who were Muslim, and then I discovered that in solidarity with them, my other non-Muslim members of the FOH team were also fasting.

I was moved to tears. It may be a cliché but at that moment I realised the team saw themselves as a unit, a family.

My point is that amidst the struggle to recruit and retain staff in the postCovid era, these moments might be lessons for us – there is a need to nurture and nourish our team. We have that responsibility. It is not just about wages (although that is very important too): it is about empathy and support. The horror stories of underpaid and exploited hospitality workers may be mostly behind us now and I hope the current economic situation with spiraling inflation and exorbitant fuel costs does not take the industry back to those dark days.