Less than a year has passed, but it seems as long ago as childhood, that last fat summer when house prices climbed toward the sun and stock portfolios grew glossy and gravid with promise. Back then, there were still office parties and expense accounts, and almost every restaurant was full. Then autumn came and we watched the American economy collapse. The New York restaurant industry (always envied and idolized by our own) was crushed beneath the rubble. Grand old places disappeared; thousands of kitchen and front-of-house staff were laid off. New York trends eventually reach Toronto: is that also true of New York disasters? At the end of November, Boba, the stable 14-year-old restaurant on Avenue Road, disappeared without a word of warning. We braced for a flood of closures, but Canada’s banks held.

Since then, our restaurants have been riding out the storm—the third major recession in 30 years. Veterans know what to expect. First, customers call to cancel conventions and parties. Business lunches disappear, and tables are empty on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. People still want to eat out on weekends, but they drop down a level: fine-dining fans flock to bistros; bistro types turn to pizza. Everyone drinks as much as ever, maybe a little more, even, but they drink cheaper wine. For restaurants, it’s a time of belt tightening and trimming of overheads. They must become more competitive, do things to get noticed—if not headline-grabbing stunts, then at least a bargain prix fixe menu, something that can be perceived as adding value.

That’s what they’re doing in New York. Amid the continuing layoffs, the talk of bankruptcies and empty dining rooms, we’ve heard tales of a silver lining. Tourists have found that they can suddenly dine anywhere in Manhattan without booking months in advance, that once-supercilious servers are now humbly grateful to see a customer walk in, that three-star Jean Georges is offering a $28 lunch, and DFF (formerly Craft’s private dining room) is giving away anything on the menu for under $10. Reactions have been less extreme in Toronto, but so is the problem. For the first quarter of 2009, our restaurant industry managed to keep its balance on the fiscal teeter-totter. One or two spots slipped quietly away—Lambros, the Greek tapas place on the Danforth, for example. In the eerily quiet Distillery District, Perigee’s closure got more coverage and a tearful final party attended by industry types. Perigee’s co-owners—Victor Brown and his sons Michael (the manager) and Christopher (the chef)—had tried everything to stay afloat, even handing out canapés at Union station until a security guard moved them on. They added a $45 three-course table d’hôte menu, they opened for lunch, they cut back on servers and cooks, but to no avail. Perigee closed on Easter weekend, more a victim of its location, perhaps, than of the economy. A couple of weeks later, Alice’s restaurant, at College and Ossington, also went under. I had eaten there only a few days before and had thoroughly enjoyed chef John Pekka Woods’s conscientiously local cooking. Although critics liked the place, our enthusiasm was not enough to draw anything like a crowd.

But such sad news has been rare. As summer seeps in, the situation doesn’t look nearly as bleak as we’d feared. Indeed, for opportunistic restaurant-goers who haven’t lost their own jobs and still have a little discretionary income to spare, the recession is proving to be a bit of a lark.