Chinese restaurants in the Netherlands are facing significant challenges. Even worse, experts are concerned that recent legislation changes could potentially eliminate the sector within the next ten years.
More specifically, staff mobility in Dutch Chinese restaurants has hit a great wall of… bureaucracy.
Why? Since July 1, 2024, new laws regulating hiring processes have made it more difficult than ever to find Chinese cooks.
READ MORE | Chinese food in the Netherlands: Dutch-Chinese food 101
This has left restaurants scrambling for solutions, with many reducing their working days, closing down parts of their business, or even cutting their menu in half.
The ‘Wok Agreement’ is up in flames
According to experts, the new law might deal a fatal blow to an already struggling sector.
“I fear that in ten years, there will be no Chinese restaurants left at all,” the co-owner of Amsterdam’s famous Nam Kee restaurant tells Het Parool.
But the problem isn’t new: increasingly strict laws have been causing chef shortages in the Netherlands for over a decade.
In 2014, the so-called ‘Wok Agreement’ proposed a partial solution to the problem.
The law allowed Chinese restaurants to impose otherwise illegal requirements throughout their hiring process, such as fluency in specific Asian languages or specific skills in Asian cuisine.
However, the agreement was scrapped in 2022 due to concerns that it facilitated illegal labour practices.
‘Without Asian cooks, no Asian restaurants’
With the special ‘Wok Agreement’ requirements being dropped, restaurants are now expected to seek out European cooks and train them in Asian cuisine.
Sector workers find this unacceptable, and in May, they submitted a petition to the Tweede Kamer (Dutch House of Representatives), titled ‘Without Asian cooks, no Asian restaurants’.
So far, they haven’t been heard.
Do you think the law should make an exception for Asian chefs coming to work in the Netherlands? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Asian cooks represent many years of culinary skill and they should be allowed to enter the country for the purpose of keeping Chinese Restaurants in business, to expect restaurants to train cooks as they need them is a ridiculous and counter productive to keeping Chinese restaurants alive.
Let’s face it, it’s just racist thinking behind it all.
Indeed, why not make the set of skills Chinese restaurant cooks need part of the job requirements? Are French restaurants not allowed to demand skill in preparing french cuisine?
Pretty ridiculous. If I walked into a Chinese restaurant and didn’t see a master Chinese Chef, I would walk right out and look for a more authentic dining venue. Support staff, ok, but for the palate I would want a chef who has been trained and influenced by generations.