“If worst comes to worst, as long as bistronomy cultivated its garden in its favorite neighborhoods, it would do no harm. Going somewhere else is another story. Tackling the 8th arrondissement in this case is not an easy task. It is undoubtedly the most difficult area in Paris, the most paradoxical. Both poor in gastronomic culture, but of a hysterical demand; wealthy, incidentally expensive, but regularly stingy; lily-livered or exhausted, there is enough to unscrew the head, swallow the chef’s hat. Cooking in this district requires nerves of steel, a strong chest, the willpower of a sumo. That’s why the arrival of Nicolas Chimot and Manon Fleury (previously Astrance and Semilla respectively) was a bit scary. Like a true thermal, cultural, a limit rake. To welcome this duo, you probably needed the skin of a good old crocodile (Le Mermoz), a true Parisian bar counter, with its elbow bar, its mosaics and the sound reverberations of a hyper-eighth audience: loud in mouth, in ringtones – and me as well. It is to be hoped that such neat plates will nail down the local mouths. For on this side, the partition is boiling, piercing. It does not depict a tapestry, nor is it stuck-up. It removes its coat, rolls up its sleeves and enters the arena. It’s funny, as there’s so much urgency to demonstrate, like these cockles and beans in fresh mint bouillon. And especially this striking dish of spinach, apparently harmless and predictable, hitting hard with a green wheat and a stunning cream of cumin. The rest is carefully bistroed: roasted white asparagus, curdled milk, blood orange, new turnip perch chicken, vinegar apple, Saint-Gilles whiting, crayons-sabayon leeks with herb butter. Desserts languishing in a benevolent horizontality: candied rhubarb-syrup of hibiscus-streusel or panacotta-pink grapefruit-ananis from Iran. The dish of the month.” [SIMO 18, author’s translation]
This review by François Simon from the restaurant Le Mermoz, 16, rue Jean-Mermoz, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, is a delicious demonstration of the fact that the restaurant is a geographical object. It raises the stakes of the logic and strategies of its location and the relationships maintained with its location space. The enunciation of the dishes reveals choices of supply and highlights the interplay of discourses and gastronomic imaginations that symbolically positions the restaurant between integration and travel.
The restaurant was born in the city, and, more precisely, in the center of the city. It is indeed found in a context of fullness, in the spatial context of density and diversity. The geographical location and distribution of restaurants should be seen in relation to the differential qualities of urban areas, growth dynamics, and urban planning and development. The restaurant derives a large number of its characteristics from those of the urban environment. Its organization, functioning and development require proximity and accessibility that result in concentrations.
Correlatively, restaurants qualify, distinguish and participate in the prioritization of cities. They play a role in the relative geographical positioning of a city and its place in city networks. Restaurants are mainly frequented by urban eaters; these being both permanent and temporary residents, e.g. tourists. Restaurant attendance is an urban practice that has a particular impact on the city or places with urban qualities. As a result, restaurants demonstrate effects on the city, its structure and dynamics. They supply the city’s urban properties. They play a role in its influence and attractiveness.
Restaurants play an important role in shaping the tourist image and building a city’s tourist reputation. Tourists deploy their recreational tourism practices in a privileged way. They play a role in the development of tourism in the area and in the emergence of forms of food tourism. They are sometimes gourmet tourist destinations. The restaurant’s role in creating the conditions necessary for local development is real. Chefs have an effect on places and in the creation of new ones, in both urban and rural areas. This influence on places leads to the question of the characterization of the restaurant as a form of heritage.
Thus, the study of the establishment, operation and development of restaurants mobilizes geographical themes: spatial location, distribution and diffusion logics; dynamics of globalization, tourism and heritage; processes of identity construction and even territorial symbolization; enhancement and re-enhancement of city–countryside relations; emergence and re-emergence of the question of nature in the city. The salience, originality, notoriety and vitality of restaurants play a role in the organization and dynamics of spaces. Symmetrically, the qualities of spaces and customers influence the characteristics of restaurants, the cuisine served, the service, the decor, the management style, the discourses and the gastronomic imagination that infuse and diffuse there.
There is also a questioning and re-questioning of the place of customers in the location and functioning of restaurants and their geographical role. The restaurant only exists if it is frequented by customers, if there are gourmet practices of permanent and temporary inhabitants. The choice and attendance of a restaurant are linked to the qualities of the location space. Hence, a geographical approach to restaurants differs from a geography of restaurants. It makes the customer the joint inventor and central actor of the restaurant by trying to analyze the practices, their sensitive relationship, their preferences, their discourses and the gastronomic imagination of the restaurant. Indeed, restaurant practices depend on the most pleasant geographical ambiences and landscape amenities to develop them, from which the desire to eat and drink is born. There is no gourmet predisposition of a particular place to host a particular restaurant and the choices and practices of the customer determine the location of a particular restaurant in a particular place.
This book does not deal with “great” restaurants. However, the study of locations, the relationship between restaurants and their locations, and their geographical effects lead to highlighting the exemplary nature of “great” restaurants. It should be recalled that for the Michelin Guide, the attribution of stars resonates with geographical logic: 1-star restaurant: a very good restaurant – worth the stop; 2-star restaurant: excellent cooking that is worth a detour! – and a 3-star restaurant: exceptional cuisine that is worth a special journey!
This book is structured into five parts. The first part aims to show the urban and, more precisely, Parisian origin of the restaurant. The location logics and the relationship of the restaurant with its places and spaces will be discussed in the second part. Since a significant proportion of urban residents whose frequent restaurants are tourists, the third part focuses on the dynamics of restaurant tourism, the restaurant as a tool of food tourism and, sometimes, as a gourmet tourist destination. The fourth part discusses the role of the restaurant in creating the conditions necessary for local development in urban and rural areas. Finally, the fifth and last part raises the question of the monumentalization and patrimonialization of restaurants.
This attempt at a geographical approach to the restaurant is exciting, rich but risky because of the multidisciplinary dimension of the object. This is why the indulgence of historians and specialists in the topics discussed is solicited.
PART 1
The Restaurant: An Eminently Urban Subject
Introduction to Part 1
Before the invention of the restaurant, inns, taverns, caterers, guesthouses and cafés offered food and drink, but the food was random in quality and not very varied in nature. The meal was eaten at a communal table, at restricted times, in an uncomfortable way.
In this context, a new place, intended for eating outside the home, was opened in the city at the end of the 18th Century and presented many original features.
1
The Geographical Origin of the Restaurant: The Urban Environment
1.1. From bouillons…
Originally, the “restaurant” was a cheap broth prepared and enjoyed in the city. Pierre Andrieu thus evokes the craze for the “divine restaurant”:
“The