Is it a café, bistro, restaurant or brasserie?

Is it a bird, or a plane or is it ……..?

Is it a café, bistro, restaurant or brasserie?

How do we label ourselves?

HospitHospitality monikers are very confused, but let’s start with their original meanings.

A ‘restaurant’ was originally a place to be restored, where one would imbibe a restorative; usually a soup or broth of some kind.

They became more popular in the then greatest cities of Europe - London and Paris - towards the end of the 18th century when the guilds started collapsing.  In France, previously only the traiteur was allowed to cook stews or dishes with a sauce, the rotisseur was allowed to roast meat (that is on a spit) but not bake meats in an oven. And so on for patissiers, boulangères, tavarniers etc.. This system started to unravel before the French revolution but was accelerated by that upheaval and by the many out of work chefs from aristocratic households (the heads of which had lost theirs!).

So, restaurants appeared and started serving anything and everything.

A particular genius, as pointed out by Adam Gopnik, was when coffee and alcohol were served in the same environment.  Previously these two powerful drugs were available either in a tavern or a coffee house, but never in the same place. The combination was a stroke of entrepreneurial genius from the giants of 230 years ago.

From mediaeval times, a ‘brasserie’ has referred to a brewery. It then became a place where beer was served.  More recently a place where beer and food are served, usually the food dominates.  Now it often describes a large swanky restaurant with a tilt towards traditional French food.

‘Bistrot’ entered our lexicon more recently at the end of the 19th century.  It might come from the Russian word bistro meaning quickly. It referred to a place where simple food and drink can be consumed. In Paris, where the term originated, a bistro would usually serve rustic or regional food.

Then we have ‘Café’.  Café is the French term for coffee shop.  Or was.  Originally a place that would only serve coffee in various forms, maybe chocolate and usually tobacco.  But not tea.  Not food. At various times and various places (the Vatican, the Ottoman empire) coffee shops have been banned.  They are places of conversation, excitement and subversion.  A danger to the establishment.  Unfortunately, they no longer threaten the established order.  

A café can be your local greasy spoon, or the very smartest restaurant in Town (London has the Café Royale and one of my favourite restaurants in London, sadly now closed, The Café des Anglais).  

Brasserie, restaurant, bistro and café have now become interchangeable and hence practically meaningless.  I still think, though, that ‘bistro’ has a hint of a smaller and more informal venue. And, in South Africa at least, a café usually refers to a breakfast or daytime venue.

It seems that those who specialize in feeding the rich or providing venues of aspirational consumption like to use terms from the Untermensch.  Is this from guilt or a doomed attempt at some sort of street credibility?

And let’s not examine the new Americanism ‘Eatery’!

So we call ourselves a bakery, because that’s how it started.  But we are also a café.  And in the evening are we a bistro, café or restaurant?

I leave it to you.