餐馆就餐始于何时？

戴夫·鲁斯

France may be famous for its culinary legacy， but the first restaurants appeared some 600 years earlier on the other side of the world. 法國或因其悠久的烹饪文化而闻名于世，但最早的餐厅却是出现在地球的另一端，早于法国600年左右。

People have been eating outside of the home for millennia， buying a quick snack from a street vendor or taking a travel break at a roadside inn for a bowl of stew and a pint of mead.

In the West， most early versions of the modern restaurant came from France and a culinary revolution launched in 18th-century Paris. But one of the earliest examples of a true restaurant culture began 600 years earlier and halfway around the world.

Singing waiters of the Song Dynasty

According to Elliott Shore and Katie Rawson， co-authors of Dining Out： A Global History of Restaurants， the very first establishments that were easily recognizable as restaurants popped up around 1100 A.D. in China， when cities like Kaifeng and Hangzhou boasted densely packed urban populations of more than 1 million inhabitants each.

Trade was bustling between these northern and southern capitals of the 12th-century Song Dynasty， explains Shore， a professor emeritus of history at Bryn Mawr College， but Chinese tradesmen traveling outside their home city werent accustomed to the strange local foods.

“The original restaurants in those two cities are essentially southern cooking for people coming up from the south or northern cooking for people coming down from the north，” says Shore. “You could say the ‘ethnic restaurant was the first restaurant.”

These prototypical restaurants were located in lively entertainment districts that catered to business travelers， complete with hotels， bars and brothels. According to Chinese documents from the era， the variety of restaurant options in the 1120s resembled a downtown tourist district in a 21st-century city.

“You could go to a noodle shop， a dim sum restaurant， a huge place that was fantastically and opulently put together or a little chop suey joint，” says Shore.

The dining experiences at the larger and fancier restaurants were strikingly similar to today. According to a Chinese manuscript from 1126 quoted in Dining Out， patrons of one popular restaurant were first greeted with a selection of pre-plated “demonstration” dishes representing hundreds of delectable options. Then came a well-trained and theatrical team of waiters.

“The waiter took their orders， then stood in line in front of the kitchen and， when his turn came， sang out his orders to those in the kitchen. Those who were in charge of the kitchen were called ‘pot masters or were called ‘controllers of the preparation tables. This came to an end in a matter of moments and the waiter—his left hand supporting three dishes and his right arm stacked from hand to shoulder with some twenty dishes， one on top of the other—distributed them in the exact order in which they had been ordered. Not the slightest error was allowed.”

In Japan， a distinct restaurant culture arose out of the Japanese teahouse traditions of the 1500s that predated todays “seasonal” and “local” movements by half a millennium. The 16th-century Japanese chef Sen no Rikyu created the multi-course kaiseki dining tradition， in which entire tasting menus were crafted to tell the story of a particular place and season. Rikyus grandsons expanded the tradition to include speciality serving dishes and cutlery that matched the aesthetic of the food being served.

Despite centuries of trade between the East and West， theres no evidence that the early restaurant cultures of China or Japan influenced later European notions of the restaurant.

The communal midday meal

Around the same time that Japanese chefs were creating full-sensory dining experiences， a separate tradition took hold in the West known in French as the table dh?te， a fixed price meal eaten at a communal table.

This type of meal， eaten in public with friends and strangers gathered around a family-style spread， might resemble one of todays hip farm-to-table establishments， but Shore says it wasnt a real restaurant in several senses.

First， only one meal was served each day precisely at 1 pm. If you werent paid up and sitting at the table at one， you wouldnt get to eat. There was no menu and no choice. The cook at the inn or hotel decided what was prepared and served， not the guests.

Variations on the table dh?te first appeared in the 15th-century and persisted beyond the arrival of the first restaurants. In England， working-class communal meals were called “ordinaries” and Simpsons Fish Dinner House， founded in 1714， served up a popular “fish ordinary” for two shillings consisting of “a dozen oysters， soup， roast partridge， three more first courses， mutton and cheese，” according to Dining Out.

First French restaurants were bouillon shops

Legend says that the first French restaurants popped up in Paris after the French Revolution when the gourmet chefs of the guillotined aristocracy went looking for work. But when historian Rebecca Spang of Indiana University looked into this popular origin story， she found something completely different.

The word restaurant comes from the French verb restaurer， “to restore oneself，” and the first true French restaurants， opened decades before the 1789 Revolution， purported to be health-food shops selling one principal dish： bouillon. The French description for this type of slow-simmered bone broth or consommé is a bouillon or “restorative broth.”

In her book， The Invention of the Restaurant： Paris and Gastronomic Culture， Spang explains that the very first French restaurants arrived in the 1760s and 1770s， and they capitalized on a growing Enlightenment-era sensibility among the wealthy merchant class in Paris.

“They believed that knowledge was obtained by being sensitive to the world around you， and one way of showing sensitivity was by not eating the ‘coarse foods associated with common people，” says Spang. “You might not have aristocratic forebears， but you can show that youre something other than a peasant by not eating brown bread， not relishing onions and sausage， but wanting delicate dishes.”

Bouillon fit the bill perfectly. It was all-natural， bland， easy to digest， yet packed full of invigorating nutrients. But Spang credits the success and rapid growth of these early bouillon restaurants not just to what was being served， but how it was served.

“The restaurateurs innovated by copying the service model that already existed in French café culture，” says Spang. “They sat customers at a small， cafe-size table. They had a printed menu from which people ordered dishes as opposed to the tavern keeper saying， ‘this is whats for lunch today. And they were more flexible in their meal hours—everybody didnt have to get there at 1 p.m. and eat whatever was on the table.”

Once the bouillon restaurants caught on， it didnt take long for other items to show up on the menu. A little wine， perhaps， some stewed chicken. By the late 1780s， the health-conscious bouillon shops had evolved into the first grand Parisian restaurants like Trois Frères and La Grande Tavene de Londres that would serve as the archetype of fine restaurant dining for the next century.

Restaurants come to America

As shown by the history of restaurants in both China and France， you cant have restaurants without a large and hungry urban population. So it makes sense that the first fine-dining restaurant in America was opened in New York City in the 19th century.

Delmonicos opened its doors in 1837 featuring luxurious private dining suites and a 1，000-bottle wine cellar. The restaurant， which remains at the same Manhattan location （although it closed its doors during the 2020 Covid-19 crisis）， claims to be the first in America to use tablecloths， and its star chefs not only invented the famous Delmonico steak， but also gourmet classics like eggs Benedict， baked Alaska， Lobster Newburg and Chicken à la Keene.

从街头小贩那里买一份快餐，或是在路边小饭馆里歇歇脚，吃一碗炖煮，饮一品脱蜂蜜酒。人们外出就餐已有数千年的历史。

在西方，现代餐厅的雏形大多始于法国。18世纪的时候，巴黎曾爆发过一次烹饪革命。然而，在此600年前，真正餐饮文化的最早典范就已在地球另一端出现。

宋朝唱菜名的服务员

埃利奥特·肖尔和凯蒂·罗森是《外出就餐：全球餐馆发展史》一书的作者。据他们介绍，最早有明显餐馆特征的场所出现在公元1100年左右的中国，当时开封、杭州等城市人口密集，数量均超过百万。

布林莫尔学院历史学荣休教授肖尔解释道，12世纪时，曾为北宋和南宋都城的两座城市贸易往来频繁，但是，行走异乡的中国商人并不习惯当地奇怪的饮食口味。

“在这两座城市，最初的餐馆主要是为北上的南方人准备南方菜，为南下的北方人准备北方菜。”肖尔称，“可以说，第一家餐馆实际上是‘民族风味餐馆。”

这些最初的餐館位于热闹的娱乐区域，这些区域为客商提供服务，客店、酒肆、妓馆一应俱全。据当时的中国史料记载，在1120年代，餐馆种类繁多，类似21世纪城市中心的旅游区。

肖尔说：“你可以去面馆、点心铺，或是规模宏大、装修华丽的酒楼，也可以选择一家小杂烩店。”

若是在宏伟豪华的酒楼，用餐体验同今日几乎别无二致。《外出就餐》一书中引用了一份1126年的中国古籍手抄本。……