• Lecture

The French Origins of the Restaurant: The 1802 Menu of Antoine Beauvilliers, Restaurateur

Lynne Farrington, Senior Curator

This talk will explore the early history of restaurants and showcase materials relating to Beauvilliers’ restaurant and its celebrity chef.

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February 11, 2022, 12:00pm - 1:00pm
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Virtual
Illustration of a nineteenth-century kitchen, vignette to Beauvilliers

It is generally agreed that the modern restaurant had its beginnings in Paris in the mid to late 18th century. Among these early restaurateurs was Antoine Beauvilliers, who ran a renowned restaurant in the years prior to and following the French Revolution. This talk will explore the early history of restaurants and showcase materials relating to Beauvilliers’ restaurant and its celebrity chef, including a rare surviving 1802 menu, his two-volume 1814 cookbook, and an 1803 sketch of the experience of eating a meal at the restaurant by an Englishman who frequented it both pre- and post- Revolution. 

 

Beauvilliers 1802 dessert menu.
Desserts, detail from 1802 Beauvilliers menu

Event Series

Elzevier Collection duodecimos.

From the Kislak Stacks

Join us for these monthly lunchtime presentations (noon – 1 pm) by Kislak curators, faculty, and students focusing on specific works or small archives/collections found among the holdings of the Kislak Center.