Hard Times will Change Food Habits

I had lunch a couple of weeks ago in San Francisco at Perbacco with two friends, a New York magazine food editor and a prolific, award-winning cookbook author. When I joined the table, the place was humming — every chair filled, waiters bustling around. “There’s no recession, here,” I commented, looking around the room. To which they both replied that people of a certain income group are immune to recession and for them, life goes on.

Not so fast. Not long after that lunch, I saw a survey reported in the San Francisco Chronicle that found the rich are doing some belt tightening, too. The paper pointed out that Unity Marketing, a firm that monitors the luxury market, said its Luxury Consumption Index was at the lowest ever in January. The company’s survey found that 39 percent of the well-heeled would spend less on luxury goods in 2008 than before (16 percent would spend more). Whether or not that includes food purchases and restaurant dining is to be seen.

Meanwhile, all is not well in the restaurant world. Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal’s “Weekend Journal” led with a story on “Cutback Cuisine” — how restaurants. even the luxury ones, are managing food costs by menuing more pastas, reducing portion size, using lower-cost ingredients and getting rid of low-profit entrees. [more…]