For although there were taverns and cheap eateries in Ancient Rome and Medieval Paris (In Pompeii, the remains of 120 taverns were unearthed from under the ashes), the present form of catering became popular only after the fall of the Bastille. At least in Europe. Before that, it was called table d'hôte, guest table. And Rabelais complained a lot about miserly innkeepers, as did Erasmus of Rotterdam. In medieval taverns and inns, the guests were given the same food as the tenants. Everyone ate at set times, at the same table, from the same dish. Just as Mór Jókai (the famous 19th century Hungarian writer) relates in his travelbook in 1853: "Soup is served in Mrs. Péter Sánta's inn at precisely quarter past twelve. Whoever is present can eat his fill, but anyone who arrives late gets nothing but an empty belly." We can imagine how the guests elbowed just to get near the pot. In Don Quixote, Cervantes writes about smelly codfish and coarse black bread, and whatever Sancho orders, it turns out that they have run out of that dish.  In the end, all the innkeeper can cook is cows' legs with chickpeas.

In the Middle Ages the word restaurant did not have the same meaning as it does today:  it meant a meat soup that "fortifies the heart". A soup that brings a dead person back to life. (Restaurer meant restore, bring back someone's health.) This must have been the kind of broth that Mathurin Roze de Chantoiseau cooked in Paris, in Poulies street (now called rue du Louvre), in 1765, when - in the spirit of the Enlightenment - she put an end to the common table for all and designed a menu.  On it were the prices of the various meals, and she served roast chicken, paté, eggs, even wine, along with the soup. Moreover, her restaurant was open from noon till 10 p.m. The guild of merchants and butchers immediately took her to court, for serving ragout and sauces had been their privilege up till then. However, much to their amazement, the judgement of the local council of Paris was in favour of the restaurateur and gave her permission to open the first restaurant, which was soon to become the expression of a new lifestyle.

The second restaurant was opened in 1782 by Antoine Beauvilliers, the Duke of Condé's cook, the head confectioner of the King's brother. The Grande Taverne de Londres (in 26 Richelieu street, near the Royal Palace) was the first to combine the requirements of a luxury restaurant: dexterous waiters, an excellent wine-cellar and faultless cooking. This was aristocratic cuisine for upstart citizens. And although it became fashionable to open restaurants (the Cancale was famous for its fish, the Café Méchanique for the special machinery with which the food was transported from the kitchen in the basement to the tables which had holes in the middle), the real breakthrough came with the revolution. The nobility fled from the capital in a panic, the cooks and waiters were all left without a job, and the representatives of the Third Estate (who came from the country) had nowhere to eat. While in 1789 there were just a few dozen restaurants around the Palais Royal, thirty years later, their number had increased to around three thousand. Among them were such legendary places like Les Trois Freres Provençaux. The owners (contrary to the name of the place) were not brothers, but they were married to three sisters. This wasn't, however, the reason for their fame. It was due to the salted cod purée (brandade) from Marseille, which they were the first to sell in Paris. Another legendary place was Le Grand Véfour, favourite haunt of Napoleon and Victor Hugo. It still exists today, but lost its third Michelin star just recently.

This was when French cuisine (grande cuisine française) became an export article. The United States and England were in awe of two Parisian chefs, Careme and Escoffier, even Tsar Alexander I and the famous banker, Rothschild, watched reverently as the maître d'hôtel prepared crepes flambé. Grimod de La Reyniere invented the expression gastromania, and published L'Almanach des gourmands, which was the first collection of gastronomic literature. Then the pope of gastronomy, Brillat-Savarin, appeared on the scene and published The Physiology of Taste.  This collection of recipes and anecdotes, disguised as a philosophical treaty, is considered the Bible of gourmands to this day. French service (where the guest serves himself from the table, or from the plate offered by the waiter) was replaced by Russian service (prince Kurakin herceg introduced it around 1810), where the waiter presents the different foods, then serves them on the waiting table. Frederic Delair, owner of Tour d'Argent, started numbering and providing with a seal his famous pressed duck (caneton pressé), cooked in port and cognac, and also recorded who ate which one. The 1,000 000th duck was sold in 2003 to enthusiastic American tourists, and it was served according to the elegant English ceremony. (Luckily, the American way of serving, where the cook brings the food directly from the kitchen and serves it onto the guest's plate, is not the fashion at the inordinately expensive Tour d'Argent.)

Well, we have come a long way from the first fortifying soup. In 1767, in a letter to Sophie Volland, Denis Diderot wrote the following: "Have I come to love the institution  called restaurant? Yes, I have, very much so! It's true that it is a little expensive, but I can eat whenever I want. The beautiful landlady is eager to fulfill my every wish. It's simply wonderful, and as far as I can see, others like it, too. Let's just hope it won't become a new fashion."