The Fine Dining Future Might Require Paper Plates and Plastic Knives

New guidance from the CDC might keep restaurants’ painstakingly-chosen ceramics in the cupboard.

The Associated Press reports that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has sent their latest draft of guidance to the White House, recommendations that the Trump Administration is expected to review, revise, then present to the country.

As part of the plan, restaurants are urged to use “throwaway menus, single-service condiments, and disposable forks, knives, spoons, and dishes,” advice that’s antithetical not only to the whole notion of dining in (as Lazy Bear’s David Barzelay recently said, “I don’t see how anybody wants to go have an ‘experience’ kind of meal that’s marred by those sorts of impersonal aspects”) but is clearly problematic from an environmental level — especially in places like San Francisco and Berkeley, which prior to the pandemic have contemplated legislation banning single-use cutlery.

Are we looking at a future where you sit down at Harris’ for a dry aged steak, which is served on a paper plate with a plastic knife? Or, even more disturbingly, cut up for you in advance as one does for a toddler? Perhaps we will become a city of covert BYOK(nife) diners, sneaking out smuggled steel when the fuzz has its back turned.

Or maybe none of those things will happen. Since these times are so unmapped, all one can do at the moment is speculate, based on the shreds of information we receive here and there. As the White House’s guidelines won’t supersede those made by local municipalities (keep an eye on Eater SF for the latest shelter-in-place details, which are expected to drop Wednesday afternoon), perhaps the Bay Area can carve out (ha ha) an exception to the potential plastic cutlery rule, as well as other guidance that works to both slow the spread of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) and support the region’s greater environmental goals.

And in other news...

• Uma Casa chef/owner Telmo Faria explained how to make his popular piri piri grilled chicken to a national audience of early risers Tuesday. [Good Morning America]
• Workers at SF-based Postmates say they’ll be going on strike from April 29 to May 1, but only for orders from Chipotle. [CNet]
• The King’s Feet, a vegan Italian spot from Berkeley meatless deli the Butcher’s Son, has opened for takeout with a manu of items like Beyond meatballs and mushroom “clam” pizza. [SF Chronicle]
• Kim Alter, the chef/owner of fine dining spot Nightbird, says she’s applied to join a new statewide program to deliver three daily meals to seniors in need. [ABC News]
• San Francisco chef Melissa King, a one-time Top Chef finalist and current contender on Top Chef All-Stars: Los Angeles, has been sheltering inside her Sunset apartment, where she bakes banana bread and leaves it on her neighbor’s doorstep. [SF Gate]
• Pause Wine Bar, which was opened by the team behind Dogpatch’s Yield back in 2011, has closed for good. [Hoodline]
• Not content to twiddle his thumbs while Oakland permitting issues — which have delayed the opening of his Texas-influenced barbecue spot — are resolved, pit master Matt Horn is focusing on stuff like feeding the entire staff of a Fresno children’s hospital. [East Bay Express]
• SF resident Aaron Lim, whose parents grew up in the city’s Chinatown, was so worried about the future of that area’s restaurants that he’s delivering their meals for free. [NBC Bay Area]