Comfort Food #20: Ilona Scholl – Is the crisis an opportunity for a new service culture?

“In Germany, food is not allowed to cost as much as it actually should. […] On the long term, there has to be a change in mentality.”
Ilona Scholl – Tulus Lotrek, 06.06.2020

Ilona Scholl runs the restaurant Tulus Lotrek Berlin together with her partner, the chef Max Strohe, and deliberately gives herself the job title “waitress”. She believes that hosting, establishing a relationship with the guests in the restaurant, deserves as much recognition as the cooking profession, which is much more highly regarded in public. We talked to Ilona about whether the beautiful profession of waitress would become more important and visible through corona – and thus finally get the chance to get more attention and recognition in the future.

In the (post-)corona period, even more so than before, the service personnel plays an incredibly important role in the restaurant business. We rely on them to create places that are safe in terms of health, all the while being aware of the sensitivities of guests and reducing their fears. Ilona Scholl exercises this profession with passion, but also demands more appreciation for it: “It is a wonderful profession and I want to talk much more about the joy it brings in its practice. Rather than talking about what actually makes it very difficult. But what makes this profession difficult, however, must first get out of the way so that we can talk about all the good things in it.” Especially considering it is less and less attractive for the younger generation, it becomes clear that there is a lack of appreciation – which expresses itself through an unsatisfactory reflection of the performance in salary.

The conversation was moderated by B-EAT Magazine Editor-at-large Lorraine Haist.

Ilona Scholl: Instagram
Tulus Lotrek: Instagram | Facebook | Website