Restaurants in Paris – How were the restaurant, bistro, and brasserie created?

After one of my previous posts I told about the history of thePublic services in Paris (The place where the work of cooking ends) It's time to tell in a nutshell the history of the place where the work of cooking reaches its peak - Paris restaurants.

The restaurant starts as a health food restaurant

Until the mid-18th century, there were no restaurants in the sense we know them in Paris. Those who did not cook at home were often forced to dine in inns, whose poor food was known far and wide (nobles and wealthy people naturally enjoyed the services of chefs such as François Wattel, of whom I wrote before).

The change in public catering began in 1766 when Messrs. Roze and Pontaille opened a restaurant serving the dish Restaurant. Restaurant was a soup made from beef or chicken that was cooked for many hours in a pot full of boiling water. This soup was considered the ultimate health food of the time because doctors believed it could restore the body's strength after illness (hence the name Restaurant, which comes from the word Restorer or Restore in English).

Because at that time, as today, quite a few people were looking for a healthy alternative to lunch and dinner, the restaurant became a success story and the establishment was named after the dish it served, and thus the word restaurant was born. However, despite the success of Rose and Pontay, the real breakthrough of restaurants, especially luxury restaurants, can be attributed to the French Revolution, which was responsible for a drastic reduction in the number of nobles and made quite a few chefs unemployed.

These chefs began to establish luxury restaurants, which were quite successful among the new elites. Some of these restaurants have survived to this day, the most prominent example being Le Grand Vefour, which is located in the Palais Royal and still serves fine, but expensive, food. One of the famous clients of that restaurant was Napoleon, who used to sit there with his young lover Josephine. Napoleon, who was not known as a great gourmet, liked to eat on the battlefield more than in restaurants and led the France To some of its greatest victories but also to a glorious defeat in 1814. This defeat coincidentally led to the invention of a new type of restaurant – the bistro.

The Russians invent the bistro

It all began when the Allied armies (England, Austria, Prussia and Russia) occupied ParisThe Russian soldiers, who were apparently impatient and did not particularly appreciate the French pace of eating, demanded that the restaurant owners serve them fast food. Since the word for fast in Russian is “bistro,” the French called restaurants that served relatively simple and fast food “bistros.” This is how quite a few restaurants were created in Paris, serving regional cuisine and where you can eat not bad lunches at all at reasonable prices (in quite a few not bad bistros, you can have a 2 or 3-course lunch for about 20 euros per person).

The brasserie comes from Alsace

Napoleon had a nephew named Louis Napoleon, who in 1851, after a military coup, became Emperor Napoleon III. This controversial man, who is more responsible than anyone for the current appearance of Paris, is also responsible for one of France's greatest defeats during its war with Prussia (1870-1871).

Following this defeat, provinces were taken Alsace Alsace Lorraine was taken from France and became part of the German Empire, which was proclaimed at the Palace of Versailles. Many French people living in Alsace at that time did not want to continue living under German rule and decided to move to Paris. These immigrants brought with them the cuisine of their region and established restaurants, which were called Brasseries.

In terms of price, these restaurants are between the restaurant and the bistro and serve dishes typical of the Alsace region, the most famous of which is the choucroute containing boiled cabbage, potatoes, meat and sausages. The most famous brasseries today are Bofinger, which is close to the Place de la Bastille, and Lipp, where Ernest Hemingway liked to sit.

And we'll end with a short video clip in which Ruth Shimoni, the country's number one expert on French culture, is interviewed by London and Kirshenbaum and explains why French cuisine was declared an international heritage site by UNESCO.

Hungry? Looking for a good restaurant in Paris?

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