Antoine Beauvilliers

(1754-1817)

Boulanger may have been the first to use the term 'restaurant' to describe his eating establishment in 1765, but Antoine Beauvilliers opened the first 'real' restaurant in Paris in 1782. He named it La Grande Taverne de Londres because he was influenced by the English, rather than by Boulanger. It was an immediate success because, as the famous gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said, it was “the first to combine the four essentials of an elegant room, smart waiters, a choice cellar, and superior cooking.”

He had an extraordinary memory, remembering the names of his guest and their likes and dislikes in food and wine. He would “point out here a dish to be avoided, there one to be ordered instantly .....; and send, at the same time, for wine from the cellar, the key of which he produced from his own pocket; in a word, he assumed so gracious and engaging a tone, that all these extra articles seemed so many favors conferred by him.”

In 1814 Beauvilliers wrote L'Art de Cuisinier, which deals with cooking and all other aspects of food service (including management) as a science, and it became the standard French cookery book of the time. He also collaborated with Carême on La Cuisine Ordinaire.