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THE HISTORY OF RESTAURANTS Where it all started Eating out is a phenomenon with over 1000 years of history. Ancient Romans often chose to eat out at a thermopolium, which was a small pub-like shop selling warmed wines and the ancient equivalent of fast food. There were also many hot food shops and taverns where meals could be purchased and consumed. All the usual fare of the Romans could be found at these shops or taverna, including hot sausages, bread, cheese, dates and of course, wine. The first recorded claim to being the world's oldest restaurant is made by Stiftskeller St. Peter, in Salzburg, Austria, which has been in existence since 803 AD, since the time of Emperor Charlemagne, as an inn. Legends are many about the famous St. Peter's Beer Cellar. Locals claim that Mephistopheles met Faust there, others say Charlemagne dined there, and some believe Columbus enjoyed a glass of its famous Salzburg Stiegl beer just before he set sail for America in 1492. Food catering establishments which may be described as restaurants, more along the lines known today, were known in 12th century in Hangzhou, a cultural, political and economic centre during China's Sung Dynasty. With a population of over 1 million people, a culture of hospitality and a paper currency, Hangzhou was ripe for the development of restaurants. Probably growing out of the tea houses and taverns that catered to travelers, Hangzhou's restaurants blossomed into an industry catering to locals as well. Restaurants catered to different styles of cuisine, price brackets, and religious requirements. The earliest recorded commercial eating house is Ma Yung's Bucket Chicken House Chuin in Kaifung, China where dim sum was supposedly invented in 1153 AD. Even within a single restaurant much choice was available, and people ordered the entree they wanted from written menus. An account from 1275 writes of Hangzhou, the capital city for the last half of the dynasty: "The people of Hangzhou are very difficult to please. Hundreds of orders are given on all sides: this person wants something hot, another something cold, a third something tepid, a fourth something chilled; one wants cooked food, another raw, another chooses roast, another grill". The restaurants in Hangzhou also catered to many northern Chinese who had fled south from Kaifeng during the Jurchen invasion of the 1120s, while it is also known that many restaurants were run by families formerly from Kaifeng. History tells us Marco Polo experienced full-service restaurants while travelling the Far East in the 13th century. Sung dynasty-era restaurants were ubiquitous in capital cities. They were patronized by the wealthy for all sorts of pleasurable experiences, including food. Growth in Europe While inns and taverns were known from antiquity, these were establishments aimed at travelers, and in general, locals would rarely eat there. Modern restaurants, as businesses dedicated to the serving of food, and where specific dishes are ordered by the guest and generally prepared according to this order, emerged only in 18th-century Europe after their earlier development in China in the 12th century. According to the Guinness Book of Records, the Sobrino de Botin in Madrid, Spain, is the oldest true restaurant in existence today. It claims to have opened in 1725, though in a different location and specialises in giant suckling pigs. The restaurant Tavares, in Lisbon, Portugal, continuously open since 1784 in the same location (though not the same building), claims to be the second oldest in the Iberian Peninsula. There is, however, evidence that Henry III of France ate at the still-extant Tour d'Argent, in Paris, France, on March 4, 1582 and Zum Franziskaner, a German restaurant in Stockholm, Sweden, claims to have been in operation at the same address, but in three different houses, since 1421. A leading restaurant of the Napoleonic era was the Véry, which was lavishly decorated and boasted a menu with extensive choices of soups, fish and meat dishes, and scores of side dishes. Balzac often dined there. Although absorbed by a neighbouring business in 1869, the resulting establishment Le Grand Véfour is still in business. The restaurant described by Britannica as the most illustrious of all those in Paris in the 19th century was the Café Anglais on the Boulevard des Italiens, showing the high regard that Parisians evidently had for London, England, and the English - at least when it came to naming their restaurants The term 'Restaurant' The word restaurant doesn't show up in print in English until 1824, in a story by James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) who was claiming that buffalo meat was as delicious as any beef served in a London chop-house or Parisian restaurant. Cooper was an American writer perhaps most famous for his novel The Last of the Mohicans. However, the term restaurant (from the French restaurer, to restore) first appeared in the early sixteenth century from Clement Marot, when referring to a group of fortifying meat broths. The popular view is that the word was first applied to an eating establishment in around 1765 founded by a Parisian broth-seller named Boulanger(Baker). According to the Guide Gourmand de la France, M Boulanger's restaurant was located on the corner of Rue du Louvre (then known as Rue Pouille) and Rue Bailleul. Above the front door he is reported to have placed a sign stating: "Boulanger débite des restaurants divins" ("Boulanger provides divine sustenance"), so becoming the first businessman to use the word "restaurant" (albeit in its original meaning) to describe a place where food can be had as well as the first to offer a choice of dishes to customers. Below the sign he was said to have added the Latin invitation: "Venite ad me omnes qui stomacho laboratis et ego vos restauro," ("Come to me, those who are famished, and I will give you sustenance"). However in a newly published book, Rebecca Spang, who teaches at University College, London, has challenged French historians to produce any evidence at all to back up the claim that a Frenchman named Boulanger was responsible for inventing the country's best loved social institution. For more than 200 years M Boulanger has been credited with opening the world's first restaurant in Paris in 1765, but Ms Spang has been unable to find any evidence that he ever existed. "This man named Boulanger simply never appears in any of the sources I have examined," she claims. She said: "These legends just get passed on by hearsay and then spiral out of control. There are simply no direct sources to demonstrate that someone called Boulanger existed and that he opened a restaurant." According to Ms Spang, the forgotten inventor of the restaurant was Mathurin Roze de Chantoiseau. The son of a landowner and merchant, Roze moved to Paris in the early 1760s and began floating a variety of schemes he believed would enrich him and his country at the same time. By 1773, he was running an establishment near to the Rue St Honoré in central Paris. The earliest restaurants specialized in cuisine that seemed very progressive at the time: strong broths that, by extracting all the nutritive virtues of various meats and vegetables, offered nourishment without any of the hazards of solid food. There was no fiber to chew, no fat to digest. However, the first Parisian restaurant worthy of the name was the one founded by Antoine Beauvilliers, a leading culinary writer and gastronomic authority in 1782 in the Rue de Richelieu, called the Grande Taverne de Londres. According to Larousse Gastronomique he introduced the novelty of listing the dishes available on a menu and serving them at small individual tables during fixed hours. He later wrote what became a standard cookbook, L'Art du Cuisinier (1814). Brillant-Savarin, a famous gastronomic chronicler, credited him with being the first to combine the 4 essentials of dining - an elegant room - smart waiters - a choice cellar - and superior cooking. Then came the French Revolution which proved to be a great impetus to the growth of the restaurant. This event leveled out the culinary world just as it did the political world. Justice became more uniform for all classes of society and more people had the opportunity to dine out. Previous to this momentous social upheaval only the wealthy were dining in the privacy of their estates. However the French Revolution drastically reduced the number of households with elaborate culinary establishments. The multitude of unemployed chefs and cooks, who were lucky enough to escape the guillotine, started restaurants or found work in them. In 1804, only a few short decades after the disruption, Paris already had 500 restaurants. An eye-witness, Grimod de La Reyniere advanced three reasons why restaurants emerged in France with the French Revolution: the rage for English fashions, including the taking of meals in taverns; the influx of large numbers of revolutionary deputies from the provinces; and cooks seeking re-employment after the break-up of the aristocratic households. Marie Antoine Carême (1784-1835) could be called the first super star of the French culinary world. Before the Revolution the private chefs had developed their own styles and talents independently of each other; so collectively it was a jumble. However due to Carême's prestige and fame as the chef of powerful political figures his influence spread widely with many imitators. One of his employers was the consummate politician Talleyrand, who said that a fine table is the best setting for diplomatic maneuvering. He also cooked for Tsar Alexander of Russia, George IV of England, and Baroness Rothschild of Paris. The Restaurant Develops Internationally Restaurants then spread rapidly across the world, with the first in the United States (Jullien's Restarator) opened in Boston in 1794. The oldest restaurant in continuous operation in the United States, Union Oyster House is also in Boston and has been open since 1826. Most restaurants continued on the standard approach of providing a shared meal on the table to which customers would then help themselves (Service à la française, commonly called "family style" restaurants), something which encouraged them to eat rather quickly. Another formal style of dining, where waiters carry platters of food around the table and diners serve themselves, known as Service à la russe, is said to have been introduced to France by the Russian Prince Kurakin in the 1810s, from where it spread rapidly to England by 1850, and beyond, leading to the present day 3 course meal. The French had had a long-standing curiosity and interest in all things Russian, and this fact coupled with their admiration for Kurakin's personal opulence probably contributed to the change in mealtime fashion. The term restaurant first appeared in USA in a restaurant review in 1859 - previously referred to as dining saloon. Delmonico's opened in New York in 1830 inventing Eggs Benedict, Oysters Rockefeller (disputed by Antoine's in New Orleans), Baked Alaska and Lobster Newburg. The first Italian restaurant was Fior d'Italia opened in 1886. Restaurants in Britain Eating out in Britain has a long history and as long ago as 8th century houses establishments were set up by the public to provide food and refreshments and were known as taverns (from latin taberna). William fitz Stephen praised a cook-shop in late 12th-century London. Most people in the medieval period cooked their own food at home but cook-shops were common in cities. Medieval Bristol had a row of them in the High Street, aptly called Cook's Row. The alehouse first became popular in the thirteenth century and the first taverns opened in London in 1272. By 1309 there were 354 The most striking parallel with modern London is that by the 16th century, as now, the eating habits of Londoners differed greatly among the haves and have-nots. Eating out in "cook-shops" was commonplace for poor people who had no access to cooking facilities: stale bread, cheese and sometimes meats were the staples. Alehouses became popular in the 1500s, especially with the introduction of a new hop-based drink - beer - and street vendors sold cheap snacks such as oysters (once commonplace in the Thames estuary). In contrast, the rich attended livery company banquets at which elaborate dishes such as turtle soup and dishes flavoured with exotic spices from the Far East were served. Complex spicing in English cookery - in London at least - goes back further than Tudor times, and the medieval diet appears to have been anything but plain. Spices were used to enhance flavour, not disguise the taste of bad meat as is widely supposed, although there was plenty of poor quality meat . Business was concluded in taverns and, later, coffee houses though poor people stayed with the cookshops and street hawkers. Luxury Eating Houses began to open, especially after the influx of Hughenots from France in 1680. Lunch remained the main meal but by 1660 it had moved to mid/late afternoon. The first hallmarked fork appeared in 1632 and 'ordinaries' opened with fixed price meals. The first London coffee house opened in 1652 in St Michaels Alley, Cornhill and by the following year there were 63 in the City serving coffee from Turkey and the Middle East. The George and Vulture in Lombard Street started as a lodging for Earl Ferrers in 1175 and is later mentioned by poet Skelton and even later by Dickens in Pickwick Papers as one of the first coffee houses. John Skelton, the satirical poet of the fifteenth century, undoubtedly enjoyed its hospitality, for he has left record in the following lines that he was acquainted with it: Intent on. signs, the prying eye, The George & Vulture will descry. Let none the outward Vulture fear, No Vulture host inhabits here. If too well used you deem ye then Take your revenge and come agen. The establishment was just The George until after 1666 Fire when the name vulture was included to stop the owner keeper a live vulture outside at the entrance. Members included Earl of Sandwich and Sir Francis Dashwood (Hellfire Club) In 1837, the year that The Pickwick Papers appeared in monthly-parts, a Circulating Book Society had its headquarters at the "George and Vulture." On the occasion of the meeting held on March 30, 1837, it is proposed that The Pickwick Papers, now in course of publication, be taken in for circulation." Simpsons Tavern near Bank tube has occupied the same space since 1757. Originally two houses it then converted to a London Chophouse and coffee shop and was the first to employ waitresses. In the 17th century, London's population increased dramatically and, as a result, inns, taverns, alehouses and cookshops prospered and multiplied. Bring Your Own isn't a new phenomenon; meals offered by inns and taverns included those made from customers' own ingredients which they had purchased elsewhere. Samuel Pepys in his diaries describes buying a lobster and meeting some friends, with some sturgeon, before going to the Sun Tavern to have them cooked. While taverns were safe for women, coffee houses were exclusively male preserves and offered British and international newspapers for the mercantile classes. 18th Century Onwards London's first Indian restaurant, the Hindostanee Coffee-House, opened in 1809 and by 1850 curry was a well-known and popular dish on many menus. The first restaurant guide to London, the Epicure's Almanac, was published in 1815 Wiltons was established on Jermyn Street in 1742. The first Royal Warrant was received in 1884 as Purveyor of Oysters to Queen Victoria, and a second as Purveyors to the Prince of Wales. Always in the St James's area, Wiltons was originally opened in 1742 as a stall selling oysters, shrimps and cockles in the Haymarket by George William Wilton, a local shellfish monger. Business prospered and moved in 1805 to Cockspur Street, to be called Wiltons Shellfish Mongers and Oyster Rooms, and run by his nephew, William Wilton, who had been a tea dealer and grocer in Soho. In 1889, the restaurant moved out of the family for the first time and was bought by David Edwin Winder, moving to larger premises in Duke Street until 1913, when it returned to King Street, St James's. The license was taken over in 1930 by Mrs Bessie Leal until 1942, mid-war, when Olaf Hambro, who happened to be eating oysters alone at the bar as a bomb landed on St James's Church, Piccadilly, asked for the restaurant to be added to his bill as Mrs Leal folded her tea towel and apron and declared Wiltons closed. Mr Hambro engaged the services of Jimmy Marks, then oyster man at Bucks Club, and reopened a week later. Wiltons moved to Bury St. in 1964, then to its current site at 55 Jermyn Street in 1984. The restaurant is still owned by the Hambro family. At the start of 18th century meals could be obtained in coaching inns, hotels, chophouses, and coffee houses. In 1760 there were over 500 coffee houses such as Whites and The Grecian. Pubs cooked vegetables and customers added meat bought from local butchers. These were not suitable for women who did not eat out but at home. There was a change in 1860s as better rail hotels welcomed women and later restaurants such as The Holborn, the Criterion and the Gaiety. London was well supplied with eating establishments by the 18th century, mainly created on the ground floor of a standard terraced house. Those catering to the wealthier client could be called chop-houses or beefsteak-houses, while pastry-cook-shops provided sweet as well as savoury food. Late 18th century inns had competition from fashionable lodging houses and eating and chop houses, hence their decline. Stone's Chop House had an interesting history. In 1664 Col. T Panton bought a parcel of ground in Piccadilly with the proceeds of one single night's gambling. He built Panton Street and soon after one William Stone set up a shop there as a Wine and Brandy Merchant which traded from 1770 to 1812. In 1812 it reopened as Stone's Coffee House changing to Stone's Chop House soon after, when it became famous for good wine, excellent food and amusing company until it was destroyed by a bomb in 1941. Incidentally it was always a "men only" preserve until a female invasion in 1921 changed that status forever. The Quality Chop House was designed and built by Sir Roland Plumbe, a renowned architect, in the 1870's in London EC1. Mr Thomas' Chop House opened in Manchester in 1870. The first 'Italian' restaurant we know of was run by Joseph Moretti who was born in Venice in 1773. He ran an 'Italian Eating House', just off Leicester Square from 1803-1805 and three establishments in Leicester Square in 1815 were referred as 'French restaurants' The Unione Ticinese was founded in February 1874 by Stefano Gatti, a restaurant-owner and entrepreneur whose family had arrived in London from Marogno in the Val di Blenio a few decades earlier. It was a mutual aid society intended to provide care in sickness and company in health to the increasing number of Ticinesi working as waiters, but also as ice men and other professions, usually as employees of more successful Ticinese immigrants in London. Most members came from the Blenio and Leventina valleys. Aerated Bread Co (ABC) opened a tea and snack café in 1884 and there were 60 by 1893 and J. Lyons opened in 1894 in Piccadilly and first Corner House in 1909 at corner of Coventry Street and Rupert Street seating 2000. The restaurant industry in Britain had arrived. |
Edited by Peter Grove
Copyright 2011 : The
Federation of Specialist Restaurants, London, United Kingdom