The Very First Restaurant
The possibility of going out to eat is at the core of every living city. The concept of restaurants goes back to 1767 where an eatery in Paris was named after its consommé, a restorative meat bouillon, known as a restaurant.
By The Empty Square
Photo: Barthelemy de Mazenod/Unsplash
The possibility of going out to eat is at the core of every living city.
The concept of restaurants goes back to 1767 as an eatery in Paris was named after its consommé, a restorative meat bouillon, known as a restaurant.
Serving such a light meal was totally new in a city where the only option used to be eating heavy food in bigger groups at the traditional eating-houses, les traiteurs, that enjoyed a state monopoly over the sale of cooked meats.
Introducing a restaurant – and other light foods catering to sensitive Parisians – was the beginning of a new eating culture, “destined to change the face of public dining for ever”, according to architect and writer Carolyn Steel.
Photo: Barna Bartis/Unsplash
Anyone, including women, could go there at any time of the day, sit at their own table, order what they liked off a menu and pay for it separately. Individual, independent, anonymous – the new restaurant was hugely attractive and can be seen as a very precise indicator of the upcoming urban culture.
It took one hundred years for restaurants to catch on outside Paris. For many years, visitors were shocked by the new establishments. This is a typical account, told by Anthony Rosny, who visited Paris in 1901:
“… my surprise was greatest when I saw people enter without greeting each other and without seeming to know each other, seat themselves without looking at each other, and eat separately without speaking to each other, or even offering to share their food.”
Today, it’s the other way around. Only a few restaurants have reintroduced the sharing and the common seating.
Will the face of public dining be changed again? For the moment, due to Covid-19, the scene has for sure been changed. The question is: What will it look like when it reopens?
We warmly recommend Carolyn Steel: Hungry City (Chatto & Windus, Random House, 2008). Quote p. 231.