Saturday 27 March 2021 will mark exactly one year since South Africa went into level 5 lockdown. This, and subsequent restrictions, had an undeniable effect on many sectors, with the restaurant industry being one of the most heavily impacted.

For Eat Out, a brand that stands for restaurants, it was a time to double down and do what we could to keep this special industry alive.

“It hardly seems adequate to describe this period as ‘tough’ or ‘challenging’ with well-established businesses and names in the industry vanishing almost overnight,” says Natalie Wilson, Eat Out’s Head of Food. “However, it has also been a year of determination to ‘do things differently’, and seeing the rush of development of new and innovative ways of doing business has been really thrilling too.”

The Year We platform is a special Eat Out project that reflects on the year we were forever changed by COVID-19. We look at how it transformed the way South Africans dine out and dine in, we showcase comfort food recipes from top SA chefs, and forecast what a post-pandemic restaurant and food industry might look like. We address the issues of sustainability and food insecurity and highlight the grim statistics of the wine trade, while also giving a nod to the things that kept us going – baking, connecting with others virtually and helping those in need.

It was The Year We…

Went back to basics

Cooked with more awareness of our surroundings

Baked our hearts out

Closed our restaurant

Learnt to help others

Saw chefs cooking at home

Appreciated wine like never before

Took our mental health more seriously

Adapted our business strategies

Imagined a different future