A year to remember

As we take our first steps into 2023, Jude Kereama looks back at a year of challenges overcome, good food shared and exciting plans for 2023.

Well, what a year we have had in the restaurants. It’s been a brilliant season and we’ve been lucky to have had so many visitors to Cornwall, enjoying all we have to offer in this great county with all our fine restaurants, cafes, tea rooms, produce, beaches, natural beauty, and people. Also, the summer was long and hot and that contributed to a fantastic long season of holidaymakers continuing to come long after the school holidays had ended.

Despite the difficulties faced by businesses around Cornwall and the UK, there has been a definite increase in the popularity of the Cornish ‘staycation’. Cornwall relies on the tourist trade, and it’s been great to see that people are able to enjoy our beautiful county now without all the restrictions we have had over the last few years. We are all hoping that Cornwall has put itself firmly in the calendar for many more to come and enjoy. It was very uncertain times for hospitality during the pandemic and our trade was by far the hardest hit; it seemed like we would never be able to open normally. The stop-start lifting of restrictions was really difficult for all of us, along with not knowing what the next rules would be or how they might affect our restaurants and cafes. After all that, we learned to roll with the punches; we all became more resilient and found that we could adapt to whatever was going to be thrown at us next. Strangely, that seems like a long time ago now.

The next challenge for hospitality was the lack of staff wanting to work in our sector after Brexit. We were all suddenly left with a huge hole in our restaurant rotas, which meant lot of places had to reduce their hours and miss out on a lot of the summer business. We’ve seen a huge rise in food prices that has affected all our food costs; fish prices doubled overnight; farmed products costs increased, and the costs have been passed onto the restauranteurs. The war in Ukraine saw the worlds grain prices rise steeply and there is now a supposed egg shortage (created by supermarkets) and these are the basic ingredients to so many dishes that we cook every day! Prices of European wine and ingredients have all gone through the roof due to Brexit, and electricity prices for some of us in our sector are going up by a terrifying 600%. To combat these challenges, restaurants have had to slim down their offering because of the need to keep costs down, and manage the lack of labour. It has been hard times, but we hope that customers can be a bit more understanding that we are all trying our best to give them the best meal and service that we possibly can.

We have seen many changes to Kota this year with the new art, crockery, and tasting menus, and while Kota will be closed for a small refurbishment, we will returning with a fresh, early spring menu where we will be looking to focus more on our foraging, pickling, ageing, and fermenting. We are already getting excited for a small break and then getting back with an exciting new menu. Kota Kai has been open since 2011 and it has been so much fun having the restaurant in its current form, and now we’re looking at freshening up the concept for Kai too with a new menu to start our spring season.

As always, the Porthleven Food Festival is a firm favourite in the calendar year, and we can’t wait to get involved for 2023. Wine and beer nights with a matching tasting menu in Kota Kai will feature all weekend, with Kota championing a seafood menu with a wine and champagne bar during the day time. It really is something to look forward too.

Our New Years’ resolution this year is to bring our waste down even further to the very bear minimum. We try our best every day, but we’re resolute to try even harder to encourage our suppliers to do more to reduce the impact on our environment. We hope more can come and join us to make a difference. Here’s to 2023!

KOTA RESTAURANT

www.kotarestaurant.co.uk