Menu pressures

Inflation and extreme weather are changing what we eat when we eat out, Hope writes.

Why it matters: Diners' demands are not only competing against commingled global challenges but they're also being partly driven by them.

Driving the news: "There's a lot of fish and seafood that I don't bring in now from other parts of the country because they're just too expensive," chef and restaurateur Michelle Bernstein told me during Axios' BFD summit in Miami yesterday.

• "I don't remember the last time I brought in things like live sea urchins and skate wings, and even foie gras."
• These luxury dishes were always on her Miami menus "because people expected them. But we find that it's not really necessary. We can get creative with a head of iceberg [lettuce] if we have to."

The big picture: Extreme weather has limited Bernstein's access to other ingredients too, forcing her to "create with what we have."

• Chefs globally have been facing similar challenges, including some in Hong Kong and others in Canada, where dishes with squid and sardine have been appearing more frequently as warming oceans push fish like salmon to cooler waters in the poles.

What we're watching: The rapid rise in food prices and labor costs over the past few years has caused restaurants to raise prices by 24% since January 2020, while margins shrunk.

The bottom line: Those pressures are likely to linger.

• Full-service restaurant employment remains below pre-pandemic levels. And droughts, flooding and other extreme weather, worsened by climate change, continue to uproot agriculture — everything from botanicals used in gin to wheat, tomato and red jalapeño crops.