Cooks have been making food for millennia, but the concept of going out to dinner at a restaurant and even the idea of professional chefs are rather new concepts. Both of which have only been around little more than two centuries.
In 1765 the first modern restaurant, Boulanger's Resturant, opened in Paris. In 1782 Antoine Beauvilliers advanced the modern restaurant with the Grande Taverne de Londres, witch provided patrons with a menu listing of available dishes, and used a trained wait staff to serve patrons at small, individual tables in an elegant setting.
By the mid 19th century grande cuisine, also known as haute cuisine, was being served at several restaurants in Paris. Grande cuisine is the rich, intricate, and elaborate cuisine perfected by Antonin Carême. He designed and prepared elaborate and elegant pastry and confectionary creations, garnished dishes with ornamental hatelets of colorful ingredients and intricately carved vegetables, and presented his creations on elaborate socles. He standardized the use of roux as a thickening agent, popularized cold cusine, and designed kitchen tools, equipment and uniforms. He also wrote and illustrated important texts on the culinary arts.
One of the finest restaurants outside france was the dining room at London's Savoy Hotel, opened in 1898 by Cesar Ritz and Auguste Escoffier. Escoffier refined Carême's grande cuisine, creating cuisine classique or classic cuisine. Bringing French cuisine into the 20th century. Escoffier simplified and streamlined some of the elaborate dishes as well as the complex and fussy procedures and classifications. For example he reduced the elaborate system of classifying sauces into the five families of sauces still recognized today. Escoffier sought simplicity and aimed for the perfect balance of a few superb ingredients.
Fernand Point is credited with advancing the mid 20th century movement of nouvelle cuisine or new cooking. A trend toward lighter, more naturally flavored and simply prepared foods. Point disdained dominating sauces and distracting accompaniments and garnishes. At the same time Point was simplifying, Gaston Lenotre modernized the classic pastries of grande cusine, infusing them with bright, fresh flavors of nouvelle cuisine
The chefs of the nouvelle movement emphasized healthful eating using fresh ingredients. They used the finest raw ingredients to produce perfect food that looked elegant and simple. They believed dishes should be simple and garnishes and accompaniments must be simple and match, and that cooking methods should be simple and direct whenever possible.
The 1970s saw the birth of New American cuisine, beginning in California but spreading across the United States, it stresses the use of fresh locally grown, seasonal produce and high quality ingredients simply prepared in a fashion that preserves and emphasizes natural flavors. In 1971 Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. Her goal was to serve fresh food, simply prepared. Chez Panisse and the many chefs who passed through its kitchen launched New American cuisine.
By the mid 1980s fusion cuisine emerged, which blended the use of ingredients and/or preparation methods from various ethnic, regional or national cuisines in the same dish.
From Monsieur Boulanger's humble restaurant, an amazing industry had emerged, and many chefs today have been elevated to celebrity status with and entire network devoted to cooking. It's mind-blowing to think about what the next century will bring in the culinary arts. What will be accomplished? What part will new technologies play in the next culinary evolution? Could we see an entirely new Culinary movement in our lifetime? ...only time will tell.
