A History Of Resturants

Hello all! I'd like to ask for a little help, I'm writing a fantasy novel, and I wanted to include a restaurant scene, however, I do not know when restaurants first developed, particularly menus, I know that ancient China had them, but I was more wondering about restaurants in the 19th century. More specifically, around the period of eighteen hundred (18) to eighteen thirty six (1836), as that is where most of the technology of my novel will draw inspiration. Thank you to all who help, I sincerely appreciate it!
 
Very cursorily, that is the timeframe in which the modern notion of restaurant emerges. Upscale eating was made possible to the wealthy, but not hugely rich, for money. A restaureant like that would have a limited menu (to modern eyes), but the basic principle of picking your fare and paying for what you consume applies. The target audience is seriously rich, so a lot of restaurants offer separate dining rooms where you can pre-order feasts for larger parties, but they depend on walk-in clientele having the day's lunch options for cash flow.

Opulent decor, but not yet purpose-built facilities in most places. Cramped, by modern standards, except in the most upscale of places. Eating is seasonal and regional, so people will travel to eat a specific dish at a given place and time.

Lower-class eateries are closer to what we would consider diners or fast-food outlets. You get what there is, at reasonable prices, to eat here or take away. The focus will be on meat, patries and soups, and the quality was often quite good, apparently.

Hostelries still mostly have table d'hote: everybody eats the same from the same table at a specific mealtime, included in the price. Hotel restaurants are a thing of the future (mostly, hotels are, really). Some will include something like a cookshop where you can purchase food to match your budget, but that is still rare. No railways, no mass tourism, and most rich people rely on mutual hospitality.

Cooking technology is just doing a major move forward, though. You get enclosed ranges, gas fire, integrated ovens and a lot of the specialised equipment a modern restaurant kitchen depends on to produce variety at speed. You're a few years before the Reform Club kitchen model yet, but all the ingredients are in place.

Kitchen organisation, too, is shifting from an artisanal to a more military model, but big kitchens were always noisy and bustling places, so no big deal here. You have the very first chefs making it into the media with their cookbooks, recipes, inventions and restaurant ventures. 'Celebrity chef' becomes a business model at this point.
 
London had "cookshops" in the early eighteenth century; what a busy person with no time to cook for themselves (or no fireplace in a tenement flat) would do was buy the ingredients, take them to a cookshop, leave a time and expect to collect the completed cooked dish on their way home.

Breakdowns and minor fiddles and scams in this are obvious, but by and large it seemed to work. And if this counts, fast food predates the restaurant proper by a couple of centuries at least.

Coaching inns and suchlike have served food as long as there have been coaching inns, and any time from about the fourteenth century onwards they should do. Or the first century, on Roman roads.
 
By the time of the 1800's. Madrid, Spain already had had a well established restaurant called Sobrino de Botin from at least 1725 onwards which is still in operation. I don't know how many other restaurants were in operation in other European cities at this time but I believe that there were inns and taverns in large numbers that served meals and one could grab bread from the bakers along with fresh roast chestnuts to make a meal on the go.
 
I'd like to say thank you to all of you! I wrote my entry to my novel today, and hopefully, your inputs have made it that much better quality wise.
 
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