The Invention of the Restaurant

During the 1760s and 1770s, those who were sensitive and supposedly suffering made public show of their delicacy by going to the new establishments known as "restaurateurs' rooms" and sipping their bouillons there. However, the restaurants that had begun as purveyors of health food soon became sites for extending frugal, politically correct hospitality and later became symbols of aristocratic greed. From restoratives to Restoration, Spang establishes the restaurant at the very intersection of public and private in French culture--the first public place where people went to be private.