Book Details

'Glorious stuff along the way... we are unquestionably gripped by the stories... Brilliant. Just bloody brilliant' -- The Times

'A playful story, most entertaining, and wonderfully documented, about the history and the anecdotes around restaurants' --Ferran Adria

'Fascinating, multi-layered, audacious and unique... mixes fact and fancy so compellingly that I read it in a single sitting' -- Russell Norman, author of Polpo

'All edible life is here - and tasty gossip as the lid is lifted on the bubbling cauldron that is culinary society' --Tatler

'Compulsively readable... Christoph Ribbat's fascinating cultural history of restaurants transcends gastronomy to trace how this 250-year institution developed and its place in society' -- Shelf Awareness

'An entertaining smorgasbord of tasty stories that build into a deeper picture of the places where we eat, from fast food joints and cafés to the temples of gastronomy' -- Hattie Ellis

'A veritable smorgasbord of mouthwatering gastronomic tales... sure to delight everyone from the most knowledgeable foodie to those of us who struggle to boil an egg' --The National

The restaurant is where we go to celebrate, to experience pleasure, to show off - or, sometimes, just because we're hungry. But these temples of gastronomy hide countless stories. This is the tale of the restaurant in all its guises, from the first formal establishments in eighteenth-century Paris serving 'restorative' bouillon, to today's new Nordic cuisine, via grand Viennese cafes and humble fast food joints. Here are tales of cooks who spend hours arranging rose petals for Michelin stars, of the university that teaches the consistency of the perfect shake, of the lunch counter that sparked a protest movement, of the writers - from Proust to George Orwell - who have been inspired or outraged by the restaurant's secrets. As this dazzlingly entertaining, eye-opening book shows, the restaurant is where performance, fashion, commerce, ritual, class, work and desire all come together. Through its windows, we can glimpse the world.