The invention of the restaurant

The invention of the restaurant in the 18^th and 19^th century

Paulo Seidl

Histoire et Culture de l’Alimentation

Université François Rabelais

Introduction

The objective of this short summary is, in light of a brief literature review, to analyze the grounds upon which the restaurant was invented in the late 18^th and early 19^th century in Paris. It also attempts to differentiate common lodges and other entrepreneurs that sold food, which had catered mostly to travelers since Ancient times, from the establishments as we know them today.

Development

The origins of the restaurant can be traced as far as the limits between pre-history and history. In places like Rome and China, lodges already offered travelers a bed, a stable for their horses, but above all, a hot restoring meal. Those businesses were often located by a major road, in central areas or near main intersections.

A few centuries later, taverns became common in more urban areas, but they served mostly drinks while offering entertainment. Cafés, a 17^th century invention, also became popular in large European cities, but did not serve any food, except for pastries and biscuits to accompany coffee. By that time, rôtisseurs and pâtissiers were also selling prepared foods, like pastries, roasts, or pâtés. Finally, there were the table d’hôtes (ordinaries in Britain), which were ‘all you can eat’ buffets with a fixed price, no printed menus, no separate tables or flexible time, regarded by many as a place with no finesse or charm.

But these businesses had little to do with restaurants as we know them today, which did not come to exist until the 1760’s in the city of Paris. At that time, it became common for convalescents to consume a very thick stock, consisting of vegetables but mostly meats, which were slowly simmered for many hours. It was believed that by breaking down proteins contained in meat, a sick person would get the necessary nourishment without the hassles of a long digestion.

It soon became fashionable for Parisians to frequent houses which prepared and served the restaurant, a restoring soup. Originally, a restaurant was not a place, but the name of a soup. By the end of the 18^th century, the so-called restaurant rooms, or houses which served restaurants, were already serving more solid food to its growing clientele.

It was not until shortly after the French Revolution, however, that restaurants took shape and proliferated. First, because with the end of absolutism, haut-cuisine became accessible to the bourgeoisie, since most of the aristocracy and nobility had been imprisoned or executed. Second, their chefs had lost their jobs and promptly became restaurateurs themselves, incrementing the growing number of restaurants existing in the city. Third, with the fall of Versailles, Paris doubled its population between 1800 and 1850, augmenting a public increasingly eager to visit a restaurant. Finally, with escalating demand, competition played an important role in the development of restaurants, boosting chefs’ creativity and resourcefulness. Between the late 18^th century and 1820, for instance, the number of restaurants increased from a mere one hundred to 3,000 houses.

It is worth mentioning that around that time, the work of prominent professionals also spurred the haut cuisine and consequently the restaurants that served it. In the sociological field, Brillat-Savarin proposes a breakthrough in food literature with The physiology of taste. In journalism, the figure of Grimod de la Reynière appears as the first gastronomic journalist. At last, Antonin Carême, the self-made pastry chef who was a street orphan in the cities of Paris during the French Revolution, sets the grounds of modern French cuisine.

By the beginning of the 19^th century, Paris was internationally known as the city of restaurants. The cradle of gastronomy became the target of artists, politicians, diplomats, and other professionals who fled to the city in order to visit its restaurants. Eating at a restaurant became a cultural program no less than visiting a museum or going to the opera. And it remained so until the mid 19^th century when restaurants started to spread outside Paris and France.

Conclusion

The early 18^th and late 19^th century witnessed the invention of restaurants as we know them today, no longer a place to restore one’s health or to be fed, but rather a locale for social gathering around food and drink. In short, the invention of restaurants reinforces the thought that eating is a sociological event, intrinsic in human relations and of utmost importance in promoting social binds by means of food.

References

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Credit of the opening illustration - https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist255-s01/students/Ruby-R-Littman/restaurants_revolution.html