THE RESTAURANTS

Introduction

Establishment where refreshments or meals may be procured by the public. The public dining room that came ultimately to be known as the restaurant originated in France, and the French have continued to make major contributions to the restaurant's development.

The first restaurant proprietor is believed to have been one A. Boulanger, a soup vendor, who opened his business in Paris in 1765. The sign above his door advertised restoratives, or restaurants, referring to the soups and broths available within. The institution took its name from that sign, and “restaurant” now denotes a public eating place in English, French, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Romanian, and many other languages, with some variations. For example, in Spanish and Portuguese the word becomes restaurante; in Italian it is ristorante; in Swedish, restaurang; in Russian, restoran; and in Polish, restauracia.

Although inns and hostelries often served paying guests meals from the host's table, or table d'hôte, and beverages were sold in cafés, Boulanger's restaurant was probably the first public place where any diner might order a meal from a menu offering a choice of dishes.

Boulanger operated a modest establishment; it was not until 1782 that La Grande Taverne de Londres, the first luxury restaurant, was founded in Paris. The owner, Antoine Beauvilliers, a leading culinary writer and gastronomic authority, later wrote L'Art du cuisinier (1814), a cookbook that became a standard work on French culinary art. Beauvilliers achieved a reputation as an accomplished restaurateur and host, and the French aphorist and gastronomic chronicler Jean-Athelme Brillat-Savarin, a frequent guest, credited Beauvilliers with being the first to combine the four essentials of an elegant room, smart waiters, a choice cellar, and superior cooking.

Brillat-Savarin also noted that Beauvilliers would point out here a dish to be avoided, there one to be ordered instantly . . . ; and send, at the same time, for wine from the cellar, the key of which he produced from his own pocket; in a word, he assumed so gracious and engaging a tone, that all these extra articles seemed so many favours conferred by him.

Before the French Revolution, aristocratic French households maintained elaborate culinary establishments, but when the Revolution reduced the number of private households offering employment, many chefs and cooks found employment in restaurant kitchens or opened their own eating establishments. By 1804 Paris had more than 500 restaurants, producing most of the great chefs of history and creating many famous dishes.

French restaurants of the 19th century

During the Napoleonic era the Palais-Royal, the colonnaded, tree-lined area adjacent the Louvre, became the site of many of the finest restaurants in Paris. The menu of the Véry, a leading restaurant of the era, listed a dozen soups, two dozen fish dishes, 15 beef entrées, 20 mutton entrées, and scores of side dishes. The novelist Honoré de Balzac often dined at the Véry, consuming prodigious quantities of oysters, fish, meat dishes, fruits, wines, and liqueurs. It was a favourite haunt of gourmet-author Grimod de la Reynière, who considered it the finest restaurant in France.

The Véry was absorbed in 1869 by the neighbouring Le Grand Véfour. This restaurant was still in business in the mid-1990s and was regarded as one of the finest eating places in France. Another outstanding Paris establishment of the 19th century was the Café Foy, later called Chez Bignon, a favourite dining place of the English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray and of the Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini, who lived in the same building. The Café de Paris, on the Boulevard des Italiens, was the first of many restaurants in Paris and elsewhere that have operated under this name. Other favourite eating places were the Rocher de Cancale, on the rue Montorgueil, famous for its oysters and fish, and the Restaurant Durand, at the corner of the Place de la Madeleine and the rue Royale, a favourite gathering place of politicians, artists, and writers, including the authors Anatole France and Émile Zola.

The most illustrious of all 19th-century Paris restaurants was the Café Anglais, on the Boulevard des Italiens at the corner of the rue Marivaux, where the chef, Adolphe Dugléré, created classic dishes such as sole Dugléré (filets poached with tomatoes and served with a cream sauce having a fish stock base) and the famous sorrel soup potage Germiny. On June 7, 1867, the Café Anglais served the now-famous “Three Emperors Dinner” for three royal guests visiting Paris to attend the Universal Exposition. The diners included Tsar Alexander II of Russia; his son the tsarevich (later the tsar Alexander III); and King William I of Prussia, later the first emperor of Germany. The meal included soufflés with creamed chicken (à la reine), fillets of sole, escalloped turbot, chicken à la portugaise (cooked with tomatoes, onions, and garlic), lobster à la parisienne (round, flat medallions glazed with a gelatin-mayonnaise mixture and elaborately decorated), ducklings à la rouennaise (the carcasses stuffed with liver and pressed, presented on a platter with boned slices of the breast and the grilled legs, and served with a red wine sauce containing pureed liver), ortolans (small game birds) on toast, and eight different wines.

Although the Café Anglais closed in 1913, when the building was demolished, the table setting for this dinner is now displayed at La Tour d'Argent, the oldest surviving restaurant in Paris.

Toward the end of the 19th century, in the gaudy and extravagant era known as la belle époque, the luxurious Maxim's, on the rue Royale, became the social and culinary centre of Paris. The restaurant temporarily declined after World War I but recovered under new management, to become an outstanding gastronomic shrine.

France produced many of the world's finest chefs, including Georges-Auguste Escoffier, who organized the kitchens for the luxury hotels owned by César Ritz, developing the so-called brigade de cuisine, or kitchen team, consisting of highly trained experts each with clearly defined duties. These teams included a chef, or gros bonnet, in charge of the kitchen; a sauce chef, or deputy; an entremettier, in charge of preparation of soups, vegetables, and sweet courses; a rôtisseur to prepare roasts and fried or grilled meats; and the garde manger, in charge of all supplies and cold dishes. In Escoffier's time, the duties and responsibilities of each functionary were sharply defined, but in modern times, rising labour costs and the need for faster service have broken down such rigidly defined duties. In the kitchens of even the leading modern restaurants, duties at the peak of the dinner-hour preparations are likely to overlap widely, with efficiency maintained amid seeming chaos and confusion.

French restaurants in the 20th century

In the 20th century, with the development of the automobile, country dining became popular in France, and a number of fine provincial restaurants were established. The Restaurant de la Pyramide, in Vienne, regarded by many as the world's finest restaurant, was founded by Fernand Point and after his death, in 1955, retained its high standing under the direction of his widow, Madame “Mado” Point. Other leading French provincial restaurants have included the Troisgros in Roanne; the Paul Bocuse Restaurant near Lyon; the Auberge de l'Ill in Illhaeusern, Alsace; and the hotel Côte d'Or, at Saulieu.

Selected restaurants throughout France are evaluated annually by the Guide Michelin, a publication devoted to surveying eating establishments and hotels in more than 3,400 towns and cities and awarding one, two, or three stars, based upon quality.

French restaurants today are usually in one of three categories: the bistro, or brasserie, a simple, informal, and inexpensive establishment; the medium-priced restaurant; and the more elegant grand restaurant, where the most intricate dishes are executed and served in luxurious surroundings.

Other nations have also made many significant contributions to the development of the restaurant.

Other European restaurants

In Italy the botteghe (coffee shop) of Venice originated in the 16th century, at first serving coffee only, later adding snacks. The modern trattorie, or taverns, feature local specialities. The osterie, or hostelries, are informal restaurants offering home-style cooking. In Florence small restaurants below street level, known as the buca, serve whatever foods the host may choose to cook on a particular day.

Austrian coffeehouses offer leisurely, complete meals, and the diner may linger to sip coffee, read a newspaper, or even to write an article. Many Austrians frequent their own “steady restaurants,” known as Stammbeissl.

In Hungary the csárda, a country highway restaurant, offers menus usually limited to meat courses and fish stews.

The beer halls of the Czech Republic, especially in Prague, are similar to coffeehouses elsewhere. Food is served, with beer replacing coffee.

The German Weinstube is an informal restaurant featuring a large wine selection, and the Weinhaus, a food and wine shop where customers may also dine, offers a selection of foods ranging from delicatessen fare to full restaurant menus. The Schenke is an estate-tavern or cottage pub serving wine and food. In the cities a similar establishment is called the Stadtschenke.

In Spain the bars and cafés of Madrid offer widely varied appetizers, called tapas, including such items as shrimp cooked in olive oil with garlic, meatballs with gravy and peas, salt cod, eels, squid, mushrooms, and tuna fish. The tapas are taken with sherry, and it is a popular custom to go on a chateo, or tour of bars, consuming large quantities of tapas and sherry at each bar. Spain also features the marisco bar, or marisquería, a seafood bar; the asadoro, a Catalan rotisserie; and the tasca, or pub-wineshop.

In Portugal, cervejarias are popular beer parlours also offering shellfish. Fado taverns serve grilled sausages and wine, accompanied by the plaintive Portuguese songs called fados (meaning “fate”).

In Scandinavia sandwich shops offer open-faced, artfully garnished sandwiches called smørrebrød. Swedish restaurants feature the smörgåsbord, which literally means “bread and butter table” but actually is a lavish, beautifully arranged feast of herring, shrimp, pickles, meatballs, fish, salads, cold cuts, and hot dishes, served with aquavit or beer.

The Netherlands has sandwich shops, called broodjeswinkels, serving open-faced sandwiches, seafoods, hot and cold dishes, and cheeses from a huge table.

English city and country pubs have three kinds of bars: the public bar, the saloon, and the private bar. Everyone is welcome in the public bar or saloon, but the private bar is restricted to habitués of the pub. Pub food varies widely through England, ranging from sandwiches and soups to pork pies, veal and ham pies, steak and kidney pies, bangers (sausages) and a pint (beer), bangers and mash (potatoes), toad in the hole (sausage in a Yorkshire pudding crust), and Cornish pasties, or pies filled with meat and vegetables.

Middle Eastern restaurants

In the tavérnas of Greece, customers are served such beverages as retsina, a resinated wine, and ouzo, an anise-flavoured apéritif, while they listen to the music of the bouzouki. Like other Mediterranean countries, Greece has the grocery-tavérna where one can buy food or eat.

The Turkish işkembeci is a restaurant featuring tripe soup and other tripe dishes; muhallebici shops serve boiled chicken and rice in a soup and milk pudding.

Asian restaurants

Characteristic of Japan are sushi bars that serve sashimi (raw fish slices) and sushi (fish or other ingredients with vinegared rice) at a counter. Other food bars serve such dishes as noodles and tempura (deep-fried shrimp and vegetables). Yudōfu restaurants build their meals around varieties of tofu (bean curd), and the elegant tea houses serve formal Kaiseki table d'hôte meals.

In China, restaurants serving the local cuisine are found, and noodle shops offer a wide variety of noodles and soups. The dim-sum shops provide a never-ending supply of assorted steamed, stuffed dumplings and other steamed or fried delicacies.

A common sight in most parts of Asia is a kind of portable restaurant, operated by a single person or family from a wagon or litter set up at a particular street location, where specialties are cooked on the spot. Food and cooking utensils vary widely in Asia.

American contributions to restaurant development

The cafeteria, an American contribution to the restaurant's development, originated in San Francisco during the 1849 gold rush. Featuring self-service, it offers a wide variety of foods displayed on counters. The customer makes his selections, paying for each item as he chooses it or paying for the entire meal at the end of the line. Other types of quick-eating places originating in the United States are the drugstore counter, serving sandwiches or other snacks; the lunch counter, where the diner is served a limited quick-order menu at the counter; and the drive-in, “drive-thru,” or drive-up restaurant, where patrons are served in their automobiles. So-called fast-food restaurants, usually operated in chains or as franchises and heavily advertised, offer limited menus—typically comprising hamburgers, hot dogs, fried chicken, or pizza and their complements—and also offer speed, convenience, and familiarity to diners who may eat in the restaurant or take their food home. Among fast-food names that have become widely known are White Castle (one of the first, originating in Wichita, Kan., in 1921), McDonald's (which grew from one establishment in Des Plaines, Ill., in 1955 to more than 15,000 internationally within 40 years), Kentucky Fried Chicken (founded in 1956), and Pizza Hut (1958). Many school, work, and institutional facilities provide space for coin-operated vending machines that offer snacks and beverages.

The specialty restaurant, serving one or two special kinds of food, such as seafood or steak, is another distinctive American establishment.

The Pullman car diner, serving full-course meals to long distance railroad passengers, and the riverboat steamers, renowned as floating gourmet palaces, were original American conceptions. They belong to an earlier age, when dining out was a principal social diversion, and restaurants tended to become increasingly lavish in food preparation, decor, and service.

In many modern restaurants, customers now prefer informal but pleasant atmosphere and fast service. The number of dishes available, and the elaborateness of their preparation, has been increasingly curtailed as labour costs have risen and the availability of skilled labour decreased. The trend is toward such efficient operations as fast-food restaurants, snack bars, and coffee shops. The trend in elegant and expensive restaurants is toward smaller rooms and intimate atmosphere, with authentic, highly specialized and limited menus.


By George Lang in "restaurant".  (2015). Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite.  Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa

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