My Cooking and My Garden: RESTAURANT

Sharing my reading about the history of Restaurant in France, I found it is fascinating. It may be good general knowledge, especially for those who visit restaurants regularly, whether ordinary restaurants or a Michelin star.

Restaurant - A public establishment where food is served. The origin of restaurants, as we know them, is not very old. In the eighteenth century, one could eat only in the inns, which served at fixed times and equally fixed menu, or at the shop of the traiteurs (eating-house keepers) who could only sell whole pieces of food.

In 1765 a man named Boulanger, a vendor of soup in the Rue Poulies, gave to his soups the name of restaurants, i.e. restoratives, and inscribed on his sign: ' Boulanger sells magical restoratives', a notice which he embellished with a joke in culinary Latin: Venite ad me; Vos qui stomaco laboratis et ego restaurabo vos. (Come to me, you whose stomach labours, and I will restore you.)

Wishing to augment his menus and unable to serve sauces or ragouts because he was not a member of the corporation of traiteurs, he had the idea of offering his clients sheep's feet in white wine sauce. The traiteurs did not fail to bring a lawsuit against him, which was a tremendous advertisement for the innovator and his sheep's feet in the white sauce were not a ragout. This was a great triumph; all Paris rushed to Boulanger's to taste this amazing dish of the recommendation of Moncrief, who raved about it. Louis XV himself had it served at Versailles, but the king, who was a real gourmand, did not share the general enthusiasm.

It is nevertheless true that Boulanger created, as Brillat Savarin says, a profession which commands a fortune for all who pursue it with good faith, orderliness and skill.

After Boulanger, the first restaurant worthy of the name was that which Beauvilliers founded in 1783 - an establishment which, because of the revolutionary activities of 1793, its founder felt obliged to close. Then followed the restaurant which Barthélémy, Maneille and Simon opened in 1786 at the Palais-Royal under the sign 'Aux Trois Frères Provencaux', although they were neither brothers nor Provencal. This restaurant shut its doors in 1869, and it was in this house that Dugléré, Casimir Moisson and Several other great cuisines of the nineteenth century carried out their first campaigns.

Behind the scenes in a Paris restaurant (French Government Tourist Office)

(New Larousse Gastronomique)

The progress in the culinary art which restaurants have brought about is immense. 'Connoisseurs', says Brillat-Savarin, 'have kept in mind the names of many artists who have shone in Paris since the introduction of the restaurants. One may cite Beauvilliers, Méot, Robert, Rose, Legacque, the brothers Véry, Henneveu and Baleine (of the Rocher de Cancale). . . Some of these establishments owed their prosperity to unique attractions, as le Veau qui tette, too sheep's feet (doubtless cooked a la poulette); Les Fréres Provencaux, to salt cod and garlic; Véry, to entree with truffles; Robert, to specially ordered dinners; Baleine to the care he took to have excellent fish; Henneveux to the mysterious boudoirs in the fourth floor . . . '

Under the Revolution, following the abolition of corporations and privileges, the restaurants multiplied, spreading good cheer, permitting everyone, as Brillat-Savarin says, 'to make, according to his purse or according to his appetite, copious or delicate meals, which formerly were the prerequisite of the very rich.

Among the principal restaurateurs of this far-away epoch we may cite the two Marseillaise brothers, whose name culinary history has not to preserve, who founded ‘Le Boeuf à La mode’, and whose sign caricatured the fashions of the day. To the Terrasse des, Feuillants came Legacque, shoe establishment later got into difficulties and ended up as a fixed-price restaurant in the Palace –Royale. In the same period Véfour founded the Café de Chartres, and Baleine, at the Rocher de Cancale, was host to Grimond de Reynière ‘Jury Of Tasters’. Carem declared him a second-class traiteur, and his neighbour Filipe supplanted him.

In The new boulevards were established the Café Hardy, the Café de Foy which later became the Café Bignon, and the Café Anglais opened in 1802. Bonifay opened in the rue de l’Échelle and then moved out to the Boulevard Montmartre. Bonvalet commented on the Boulevard du Temple with the Cadran Bleu, directed by Henneveux and La Galiote; Père Latuile Avenue de Clichy, where the allies established their headquarters in 1815; the Moulin Rouge, Avenue d’Antin, where Escoffier began: Paillard, Vachette-Brèbant, Voisin; the old Café de Paris; the Café Riche, the Restaurant Marguery, and others, too numerous to mention.

Restaurants Of Bygone Days

Restaurant Le Doyen

Some ancient restaurant are changing and becoming ‘Americanised’, which seems a great pity. Some become ‘cold buffet counters’, others become ‘automatic’, either again become ‘cafeterias’.

It is regrettable to see celebrated Parisian eating-houses Thus disappear – or at least become transformed. French cooking has nothing to gain from these changes.

The wine shops, the bouquets, as they are familiarly known, where it is possible to eat, are also very numerous in Paris. In some of these houses, frequented by workmen and people in modest employment, the cooking is excellent, because it is honest and straightforward. It is still possible to find in Paris some establishments of this kind where one may regale oneself with succulent boiled beef, savoury pork with cabbage or a beef ‘bourguignon’ done in an old-fashioned way.

Café Of Bygone Days

Café Anglais

Based on: New Larousse Gastronomique

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Today people go to restaurants, to enjoy the atmosphere and the food, to be with friends for having an important celebration and also they simply enjoy the outing and the dining experience. Dining out in a pleasant ambience can be relaxing, to be served beautiful wine and food. At the end of the day, dining out regularly in the restaurant is a lifestyle.

My cooking for a treat.