Iconic restaurants adapt to lockdown in SAmerica

Fine dining has been forced to reinvent itself in Latin America as social distancing measures prevent restaurants from serving clients in person. In Argentina, the Don Julio steakhouse ranked 34th on San Pellegrino's list of the world's top restaurants last year.

Now it has become a butcher's shop that delivers cuts of organic beef to customers around Buenos Aires.

Chef Pablo Rivero says he prefers to sell raw cuts of his prized beef to stuffing his dishes into takeout boxes and compromising their quality. The butcher's business has helped him to avoid laying off staff.

The virus has punished the industry severely as sales plummet and restaurant owners are stuck with fixed costs like rent. That's prompted some places to reinvent themselves in order to stay afloat.

"This helps us to stretch our funds," Rivero said.

In Colombia, inside a refurbished colonial home, diners at Leo feasted on set menus of at least 12 courses.

A past menu included a thin slice of Pirarucu fish from the Amazon wrapped in its own skin and a bite-size portion of Caribbean duck stew, served on a purple corn tortilla and topped with edible flowers.

But dining at Leo has been banned since mid-March, when Colombia started to enforce social distancing measures. So chef Leonor Espinosa now uses her restaurant's kitchen to make takeout dishes like pork-belly tacos that are cheaper to make and easier to carry in cardboard boxes.

Espinosa, who has been forced to lay off about half of her staff, says "we've created a take-away brand that is more suited to the current needs of the market."

Some famous restaurants have had to cease operations altogether while they ride out the storm.

Elsewhere in Latin America, where the market economy prevails, many restaurants are going under.

Guillermo Gomez, the director of Colombia's restaurant association, says that by the end of May, 27,000 of the country's 90,000 restaurants had shut down for good as they struggled to  pay rent, salaries and public services with little income. Gomez said that sales from takeout have failed to make up for revenue lost from in-person service.

Restaurants have also struggled to secure loans as the government provides little clarity on when they will be able to host customers again, or under which rules.

Those with some savings continue to soldier on with smaller staff, while elite eateries prepare for a more austere future.

Espinosa says that she might be "less rigid" when her restaurant can once again resume in-person service, and may offer a la carte options along with her elaborate tasting menu.

But she says she will continue to make experimental dishes with exotic ingredients from remote corners of Colombia. "We will continue to connect people with territories."