Aria (Image: Aria/Facebook)

Breaking the food chain In pre-COVID times, a high-profile restaurant announcing it was complying with government health advice wouldn’t be particularly noteworthy. But when Sydney’s Aria restaurant did just that on Instagram last Friday, announcing its reopening on October 18, it set off a firestorm. 

The post made it clear “only fully vaccinated guests will be allowed to enter our venue”. A total of 9729 comments later, the post is still acting as a virtual front of the vaccine wars, as pro- and anti-vaxxers slug it out over whether restaurants and other hospitality venues have the right to keep out the unvaxxed. Ironically, and inevitably, these include death threats and a thousand yelps of “discrimination” and “medical apartheid”. 

The next day, veteran Australian chef Neil Perry posted a video on his Instagram, supporting Aria:

We will open up bookings for @margaretdoublebay next week for a time when we can open to vaccinated people, which is a health order … @chefmattmoran and @ariarestaurant, I’m sorry you had to deal with such rubbish yesterday. Hospitality stay strong and stay united.

As other chefs issued messages of support, the anti-vaxxers hit back, inevitably defaulting to comparisons with the Nazis. When multi-award-winning chef Mark Best posted a positive message, he was called a “total hypocrite, a fascist, a totalitarian that discriminates under the order of a tyrannical leader”. The poster sensibly continued: “Do you also agree with Hitler in the Holocaust? Because you’re acting exactly as the Nazis did.”  

The health orders don’t apply to staff, only customers. Industry body the Restaurant and Catering Association has asked for clarity on staff, saying its members need “guidelines and direction”. 

Of course, fully vaccinated staff are good for business. After hospitality giant Merivale Group announced that all venues, such as Mimi’s, Bert’s and Mr Wong, would reopen with fully vaxxed staff and customers, their reservation site almost melted down, and several venues are booked out for weeks. 

Meanwhile, fast-food giant McDonald’s is not making its staff get vaccinated. But, a spokesperson told Crikey yesterday: “We are encouraging all eligible employees to receive the vaccine or discuss getting the vaccine with their doctor.”

Bank on it As we detailed yesterday, an ex-banker never needs to look for work for long. And while we’re not making a direct comparison to the “sending the goat to fetch the cabbage” appointment of Nicholas Moore to regulate the regulators, it is interesting to note how much retailer Woolworths loves a banker or two on its board.

The country’s biggest retailer announced on Thursday that it has appointed Philip Chronican, chair of the NAB, to its board after the retirement of Michael Ullmer, replacing one banker with another.  

Chronican has been around — a senior executive at Westpac and then at the ANZ, before being named chair of the NAB in 2019. He was interim CEO of the bank after boardroom losses after the Hayne banking royal commission.

Strange bedfellows Hospital shortages make for strange bedfellows, and none more so than on attacks on journo Rick Morton’s recent article on NSW COVID hospitalisation numbers.

Morton argued by not counting hospital-based home care, NSW has undercounted serious COVID cases by two-thirds. He was assailed online by NSW doctor Tad Tietze, arguing that such care isn’t, and has never been, regarded as hospitalisation. Tietze then harvested praise from the likes of Rita Panahi and James Morrow.

Who’s Tietze? As well as being a doc he is, or at least was, a hardcore Trot, the last editor of the international socialists’ newspaper before the group folded. He’s now, as is the way of such things, a fervent lockdown sceptic from the hard left. And a new News Corp fave. Strange, uncounted bedfellows indeed.