FIRST, SECOND, THIRD COURSE AND COMPOTE...

How much money do you need to eat out at lunch time? This question does not bring a very positive response from many as they instantly start to calculate the cost of lunch for a month. Frankly speaking, there are few companies in Azerbaijan today that pay for their employees' lunches, not to mention the fact that the tidy sums spent on lunch have created the term "student's ration" - not very expensive and not very hearty or healthy food. True, if you take a closer look, this "student's ration" is actually not such a cheap pleasure - living on unhealthy, dry rations will cost, at a very rough estimate, at least one manat per day, i.e. 30 manats per month. What can we say about the cost of more or less full meals, 100-150 manats, outside the home?

Three niches

A question arises: why is it so expensive to eat out in Azerbaijan, despite such an abundance of shops selling various convenience foods and lunches, as well as restaurants, fast food cafes and other public catering facilities? The answer is simple: in our cities there are very few, or rather, almost no restaurants with reasonable price levels, where you can eat normally, without putting your life, purse, and aesthetic pleasure at risk. This means that the culture of public catering in Azerbaijan is at a low level, since two niches of the domestic restaurant business outweigh the so-called mid-level restaurants, in other words, democratic restaurants where prices are not very high, the food is delicious and the atmosphere does not cause an imbalance in your psychic harmony.

Tahir Amiraslanov, head of the national cuisine centre of Azerbaijan, also subscribes to this point of view. According to him, indeed, the domestic restaurant business is divided into three niches today - they are fast food, mid-level restaurants and "gourmet" restaurants. All three levels differ not only in volume but also in the number of players. There are too many of some of them and very few of others, but they are all disproportionately expensive. "The price of fast food should be much lower than food in the 'gourmet' restaurants. In reality, however, there is a kind of imbalance: fast food is very expensive and 'gourmet' food is even more expensive. It turns out that the large army of average-income workers whose various companies and other establishments do not provide meals for their employees, have no place to eat, not to mention students and pensioners who fear restaurants like the plague. But this should not be the case! Are they really fated to eat only meals sold via a chain of mobile cabins and various doner shops that combine relatively low prices with not always satisfactory quality?"

In such a situation, democratic restaurants, where you can eat good, clean, tasty and inexpensive meals prove quite helpful. However, there are few of them in Baku, while in many CIS cities this market segment is nearly full and is constantly gaining momentum, to such an extent that not only students with their meagre stipends, but also pensioners can afford normal, complex, self-service meals - with "first, second and third courses".

Beautiful means expensive. This is the principle on which the domestic restaurant business is developing. "Gourmet" restaurants appeared in Baku in the early 1990s and this market is currently undergoing intense development. These restaurants have withstood, and still withstand, competition, but this has not brought about a liberalization of prices. True, this does not mean that there are many such restaurants in Azerbaijan - there are very few people who can afford them. And if the major players in the first two niches have lived by more or less the same rules and laws for almost 25 years, in the third segment of the restaurant business - democratic restaurants, the situation is not good, said the expert. The average price niche in Azerbaijan is not just under populated, it has not even taken shape, despite the fact that the clientele for democratic restaurants is much larger than that for fast food and "gourmet" restaurants, even though very few restaurants in Baku which pose as such reach this level, Amiraslanov emphasizes.

It is time to act

Developing the niche of democratic restaurants in urban areas is food for thought for many Azerbaijani businessmen, because this sector of the market is almost empty. The latter must understand that most Azerbaijanis eat at home, even during lunch, because they prefer "mobile" home food over an expensive restaurant meal. Home cooking is inexpensive and not harmful, not to mention the fact that people who know a lot about good food would never poison themselves with fast food, which should cost a penny for its conceptual level; as they say - eat poison, but don't worry because it's cheap.

Only 2 per cent of people visit high-priced restaurants in Azerbaijan, as is the case elsewhere in the world. The expensive restaurant niche is almost full. The reality is that it is the democratic sector that makes you money, because you do not need French towels and "haute couture" dishes - their absence helps reduce the costs.

The youth respond well to establishments with democratic prices. For young people, the restaurant is not the pathetic place they used to visit with their parents once in six months.

Today young people are not afraid to call the waiter and order food. They do not "worry" that there are no vacant seats. They come in, order food worth three qapiks, and that's it. Therefore, we will develop restaurants in the democratic pricing category. Moreover, according to Amiraslanov, such restaurants should offer not European cuisine, which is now trendy, but national Azerbaijani cuisine.

Another issue is quality. Democratic restaurants should be attractive and the food there should be of high quality. Today, the food in the most inexpensive restaurants not only fails to meet specific culinary requirements, but many of them do not follow even basic hygiene standards. "This is not a mere allegation. It is based on the results of raids conducted by bodies of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The results were far from rosy, and the culinary centre was instructed to train appropriate personnel. We, of course, recruit students from the culinary schools and train them, but this is not enough. For example, hotels and restaurants should recruit professionals compliant with world standards. The restaurant business in Azerbaijan requires methodical, educational assistance, as control is usually accompanied by unpleasant outcomes. In Baku, there are several restaurants that meet both culinary and sanitary-epidemiological requirements. But they are few, and it is expensive to indulge in gastronomic delights there." Unfortunately, in Azerbaijan, the restaurant business is focused mainly on foreign visitors. There is no culinary industry or equipment providing the technology for labour-intensive and time-consuming national dishes in the country. So, Azerbaijani entrepreneurs have something to think about and work on.