If you put aside the masks, the bottles of hand sanitizer on each table, and the contact-tracing forms distributed along with menus, last Wednesday looked like a normal pre-COVID -19 lunch hour at Paris’s Ibrik Kitchen, a popular Balkan canteen. Regulars filled the intimate dining room without hesitation and relished bites of chiftele and baked feta, questioning whether it might be their last restaurant meal for a while.

“See you in a month, maybe?” was the refrain from Ecaterina (Cathy)