Did the French Revolution create restaurants?

Not exactly.

In this episode, we explore the true origins of the modern restaurant with gastronomy expert Allison Zinder. Together, we uncover how medieval taverns evolved into the first restaurants, why the earliest restaurant served restorative broth, how menus and private tables transformed dining, and why many French restaurant customs still exist today.

If you've ever wondered where restaurants came from, or why dining in France hits different, this episode is for you.

Podcast Show Notes

In this episode:

• The myth linking restaurants to the French Revolution
• What dining looked like before restaurants existed
• The story of Boulanger and the first Paris restaurant
• Why "restaurant" originally referred to broth
• How menus, prices, and private tables changed dining forever
• The lawsuit that helped launch the restaurant industry
• Why bouillons became Paris's original fast food
• French restaurant culture and the importance of taking your time
• Why substitutions are often discouraged in France
• What makes French dining unique today

Guest:

Allison Zinder — gastronomy guide, culinary historian, and French food expert.

Learn more about Allison here, you can even take a Paris food tour with her! https://allisonzinder.com/

Key Takeaways

• Restaurants existed before the French Revolution.
• The first restaurant opened in Paris in 1765.
• "Restaurant" originally referred to a restorative broth.
• Private tables were one of the most radical innovations in dining history.
• Menus with prices were a major breakthrough.
• Restaurants made it possible to dine alone.
• Bouillons were early affordable restaurants for working people.
• Many modern French dining customs trace directly back to the origins of the restaurant.
• French restaurants prioritize experience and hospitality over speed.
• The chef's vision remains central to French restaurant culture.

• • • • • • • • • •

Fishwives of Paris is the podcast that dives into the surprising stories, myths, and realities behind French food, wine, and culture. Hosted by Emily Monaco and Caroline Fazeli.

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Bonjour, Emily.

Bonjour, Caroline.

Bonjour, Alison.

Bonjour.

Welcome to the Real Fishwives of Paris.

Merci.

Thank you very much.

So, Alison, you're going to be burning down some myths for us today, but before we get to that, can you please tell us a little bit about yourself?

Yes, I'd be happy to.

So I trained as a professional chef here in France and worked as a professional chef and culinary instructor in a center de formation d' appenti for young French boys.

Knives, flames, hijinks in the kitchen.

And then I converted to becoming a gastronomy guide, a gastronomy consultant.

So that's what I do nowadays.

I take care of a lot of, let's see, study abroad students who are coming from the United States to learn about French gastronomy, give tours to just regular people like us.

And how long have you been here?

Oh, wow.

So, yeah, I've been here for almost 30 years.

You're an OG.

In the blink of an eye, it happened.

That's crazy.

It's crazy how fast that goes.

Yeah, it really, really has gone very quickly.

So.

But I love France, and I love.

Paris, and so we're really excited to have you on the podcast today, because as the Fish Wives, we love to debunk the myths and legends around French food.

You are an absolute expert on the history of restaurants, and there is a legend that's floating around that the Parisians love to tell, that not only did Parisians invent the restaurant, but they did it as a direct repercussion of the French Revolution, that basically, according to this myth, they were chopping off heads left, right, and center, and all the chefs of all the nobles who were losing their heads had no jobs, and so they decided to open restaurants.

Allison, is it true?

Partially true.

Okay.

But not entirely.

Of course.

There's a lot more behind it.

Can I just stop you there?

Because I feel like we average, normal people that don't know anything about food or wine or people that do know about food or wine, but just it's so normal to have restaurants.

Restaurants feel like something that have always existed.

And of course, in some form they have.

But more like an inn, right?

Absolutely.

You know, you would go to an inn and get served a hot meal, but you're paying for your lodging.

Really?

Yeah, really.

What we had before, the first.

What we would consider to be the first restaurants were tableau D', hote, sort of like inns you might be spending the night, you might not have been.

And they were really, really rough and tumble kind of places.

You know, from medieval times, people could always get a bite to eat.

I mean, it was mostly people traveling for, you know, professional reasons or even pilgrimages, for example.

People have always traveled and had to have food, sustenance somewhere on the road.

And so these inns or tableau d', hote, they were more like taverns.

Basically.

People would be sitting, seated at this very sort of like a long table, kind of like this one, and on long wooden benches.

It wasn't very comfortable.

You know, you would eat.

When the owner was serving food, he would say, when you were going to eat, usually there were men, only men.

You know, it was a pretty rough environment because these guys were, you know, they had their daggers at the table, you know, I mean, that's what they were using basically to like, stab the big, huge hunk of meat in the middle.

I mean, I kind of like to envision them as sort of all like descending on a piece of meat on a big, you know, sort of wooden cutting board in the middle.

You know, in medieval times, there weren't even plates.

I mean, it was just like you'd had a tonchois, which is maybe like a big piece of bread that was your plate to sort of sop up the juices.

I don't think people were eating very many vegetables.

What they were doing at the table is basically belching, passing gas, you know, I mean, it was really like not a very savory environment I would have.

Set right in.

Anyway.

So, yeah, I mean, those have always existed.

And it was in Paris.

It was in a tiny little street called Rue des Puli, which is the actual, like the current day Rue du Louvre, kind of right next to where the Louvre is.

Because the Rue du Louvre, of course, didn't come along until, you know, under, like, Houseman, Napoleon iii.

And so it was just a tiny little street.

And this guy named Boulanger, one of his names, decided he was going to open up a different kind of establishment, something that was a little bit more what I like to call for the fainting aristocrats.

You know, the sort of people who would be interested in having something healthier, a more civilized dining environment.

So he actually installed very small sort of marble top tables, almost like the ones you might see nowadays in a tea room.

And these were the.

This was the first time you would have an individual table.

Okay.

There were mirrors.

And that was going to be a really, really important, important part of restaurants later on is this idea of mirrors and being able to see and be seen.

But that.

That's a little bit later.

And so what he was going to serve in this restaurant was a broth, a restorative broth.

I like to think of it as sort of the.

At the time, the equivalent of the modern juice cleanse.

It was something.

Yeah, it was something very helpful and light because remember that these aristocrats had very delicate constitutions.

You know, they weren't going to be eating the big greasy hunk of meat they were going to.

You know, they just needed something a little bit.

Yeah.

Lighter to keep healthy.

And so is that the only thing they would serve is broth?

In the beginning.

Okay.

Yeah, in the beginning, that's what was served.

Exactly.

I think we have one of those where I grew up in New York.

Yeah, I'm sure you do.

Like.

Like a bone broth bar.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

So, yeah, that was, you know, la mode.

So he opens up this little restaurant and the idea is that this broth was something new, because it really.

It wasn't something new, but it had only been served in hospitals, of course, you know, since Roman times.

Basically, it was the.

Come pay for it.

Exactly.

Pay, you know, big bucks for it.

So it was.

It was a restorative broth.

You know, get.

Get you back on your.

And from that we have.

The idea of.

It was, you know, like I said, a restorative broth.

In French, we would say it's a restaurant.

And so from that we have.

If you pronounce it a little bit differently, it's a restaurant.

So the restaurant.

The restaurant was actually the thing that you would drink.

It was the broth.

It wasn't the place.

Okay.

And then, of course, as time went on, the place became the restaurant instead of just the broth.

Kind of like later on, the bouillon or broth, you know, became the name of a type of restaurant in Paris.

But we'll get to that.

But so, yeah, that was something that was really new and different.

Now, Boulanger, that was a few names you mentioned.

Boulanger had multiple names.

Yeah.

So Boulanger was the guy who opened the restaurant.

And then over here you had this guy named Chantoiseau who was basically distributing a little guide to the area around Les Halles and actually they were one and the same.

So of course, Chantoiseau was pointing people to his own restaurant, which was run.

By a certain Ducking under the little marble table and changing his hat.

Exactly, yeah.

Wheeler dealer, you know, master of self promotion.

You know, I love that.

Nothing new.

So, nothing new under the sun.

So this is the very first place that we have to go for these restorative broths.

Yes.

How quickly is he imitated and how quickly does he diversify from these broths to something else?

Okay, so what happens first is the diversification.

I mean, there may have been some imitators, but I don't, I don't get the impression from everything I've read and studied that there were many imitators in the beginning because it was just something very, very simple.

What did get him into really hot water was when he diversified and he started serving basically a dish that was a sheep's foot in a sauce poulet.

Okay, yeah, and a sauce poulette.

So it's sort of like a creamy, like rich sauce.

So these corporations, these food guilds had, you know, everything under their purview.

You know, you had the butcher's guild, you had the pork butchers guild, you had the pickle guild, you had the vinegar guild, you had all the guilds, the, the pastry cooks guild.

And they had a lot of really hair splitting rules and sort of arcane kind of ways of doing things.

But of course, these guilds.

Sorry, nothing has changed, basically.

Yeah, pretty much.

Except these guilds had been basically blessed by the king from the Middle Ages on, and so also anointed by God because of course, the king, God, the church guilds, they were all like a big sort of mafia.

They were all together.

Okay?

So that's one of the reasons for the demise of the guilds right around the time of the French Revolution.

But the problem was, is that this guy Boulanger is serving a bouillon in a restaurant.

Okay, so far so good.

No problems.

The guilds were kind of like looking like, what's that guy doing over there?

Looks a little suspicious.

But there's no broth guild, so I mean, technically he's not doing anything wrong.

Should we start admit we should have started a brothel.

Should we start the broth guild?

That's going to be our Parisian bone broth bar.

Yeah, the bones.

The broth guild.

Yeah, the Corporation des Bouillon de mustoh,.

A hat, some jewelry.

Robes.

Yes.

Okay, I'll tell you about the robes in a little while.

Anyway, so they always have robes.

They're long and they're blue and they're velvet.

Oh my God.

But then we get in trouble with the Knights of the Brotherhood of St. Antoine.

But anyway, so what happens is this sheep's foot in the poulet sauce is all of a sudden the under the purview of the traitor guild.

So these are like the cook caterers who are the ones who are responsible for making like stews and things like that.

Things that are in sauce.

Okay.

So I just like that there's literally a guild for people that deal with things in sauce.

Yeah, but you know, these are people.

Then let's, let's elaborate on that.

Like where.

Who are they serving?

Are they serving merchants?

Are they serving bourgeois families?

Are they serving businesses?

Like, if you're a traitor at this time, who's eating your food?

Some of the people who might have been able to go to taverns, but maybe didn't because women or people who just didn't want to deal with the whole tavern atmosphere because taverns were kind of like a closed boys club.

I mean, usually when you went to a tavern or table d', hote, you knew everyone else around the table.

It's the pub.

Yeah, basically.

And so if you didn't go there, you could always pick up food.

I mean, that's always existed.

So these traitors who were eventually sort of incorporated into the Charcuteier or the Bourke, the pork butchers were a separate guild.

So the traitor and basically the whole guild system, they slap Boulanger silly with a lawsuit.

Okay.

Because they're like, man, you're not allowed to do this.

We're going to shut you down.

Shut your stuff down.

Okay.

So that's actually great for Boulanger.

I mean, it was a boon for him because of course, all around Les Halles in that area, you know, you've got people who are following this lawsuit.

You know, inquiring minds want to know.

And, and they were following it and they're like, wow, who is this guy Boulanger?

And so that's free publicity for Boulanger, which is amazing.

And then he wins.

Okay, okay.

And this is at the same time that the guilds are just like going straight down to hell, basically, because we're getting up to the time of the French Revolution.

So basically, I mean, that first restaurant predates the French Revolution.

And during the time that Boulanger is Getting publicity not only for customers, other people are getting interested in his offer in terms of like, hey, if he can do it, I can do it too kind of thing.

Then that's when you have French Revolution coming in.

You know, aristocrats losing their heads.

The chefs who they employed either leaving with them to go to England, Germany, you know, they're fleeing maybe, and they are, though out of a job instantly.

So they see this model over here and they're gonna, you know, start opening restaurants.

Yeah, there is a grain of truth, of course.

And at the same time, after the French Revolution, you have a lot of people coming up from other areas of France because of course, everything's opening up.

You've got the aristocrats leaving the system, the entire social system has changed.

And you've got all these men coming from different areas of France to find work and to find opportunity.

So these guys are all coming up to Paris.

They need to eat.

You know, so the offer that was originally sort of for, you know, maybe like more sort of upper middle class or the fainting aristocrats or whatever is going to democratize.

You know, it's going to sort of come down to the masses because, I mean, those people still could get, you know, food at a treta or like a, you know, cook caterer and, and carry things out.

But, you know, little by little they were going to start being able to go to these restaurants, you know, just like cheap, you know, cheap grub, basically.

I mean, one thing that I.

So I, in, in getting ready to interview you, I was reading Rebecca Spang's book about the invention of the restaurant.

And one of the things that she mentioned was actually kind of that.

That was another point of distinction between the taverns and the restaurants is that because as you mentioned, you get your own table.

Yeah.

Suddenly you can go and just eat by yourself.

Yes.

And there were other differences, of course, and that's really like Chantoiseau, Boulanger's sort of legacy is the idea that, for example, when you went to a tavern, you didn't.

I mean, I guess there was a, there was an idea of how much you were going to pay, but maybe not a very specific idea.

And you weren't, you definitely weren't going to get to choose what you ate.

So the idea when you go to the Restaura is that, you know, Chantoiseau was the first or Boulanger to put to display a menu.

Well, first of all, a menu.

The idea of even having a menu that was printed and had prices and that, you know, you had choices.

That was like, absolutely amazing.

The other thing is that he was the first to display the menu out in front so you could actually look at the menu and decide if this place was for you, if they had an offer for you, and if it was in your price range before you ever set foot in the door.

Because once you've set foot in the door, it's like, oh, no, how do I get out of here?

This place is too expensive.

And that actually holds true today, that, you know, it's a French law, if I'm not mistaken, that every restaurant must display its menu outside so you can have a look and then move on your merry way if it doesn't, you know, correspond to your budget.

So this place would have been, even to us today, immediately recognizable as a restaurant.

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I think so with the menus outside.

Yeah, yeah.

And the idea that, yeah, the little marble taught tables, you know, and even a woman could go, you know, maybe not right away, but a woman could go and not be bothered by anyone.

She was sitting at her own table.

So that was really important.

That's a big deal.

It's a miracle.

Yeah.

And then again, you've got that whole, like, story about all the mirrors all around, which still exist today.

You know, they exist today in the big brasseries, things like that.

It's very much this, like, see and be seen kind of thing.

And you could discreetly, you know, see what other people were eating by looking in the mirror.

And, you know, you're really looking that way because you're looking in the mirror that way.

And you can also check out somebody's hat, somebody's dress, somebody's mistress.

Yes, somebody's mistress, for sure.

Somebody's spats, if you're looking further down.

You know what I mean?

Like, so all of those were a thing.

And those mirrors are a really important social element of the restaurant.

It's funny because it's like, antisocial in a way, but it's the opposite of the tavern where everyone's up at everyone's business.

You're just kind of like up at.

Everyone's business in a very discreet, very French way.

So it was good.

And you were talking earlier about this neighborhood, so obviously the very first restaurant that you mentioned being right around Rue du Louvre, and.

And then all of these other places kind of popping up around Les Halles.

So Les Halles, for people who aren't familiar with Paris, used to be the major market district of Paris.

And if I'm not mistaken, a lot of.

Even though the original restaurant is no longer there, a lot of the very early restaurants that popped up around Les Halles, some of them are still there.

Some of the really old ones are still around.

Yes, in some form.

Yes, in some form, definitely.

My favorite example is Le Pied de Couchant, the Pig's Foot.

But of course, there were always restaurants along that street from basically the very beginning because it was just outside of that Philip Augustus, you know, medieval wall.

And of course, it was easier and better and far cheaper to go outside of medieval Paris to eat and drink, just the way it was, you know, much later when you people would go to Montmartre to go to cabarets, because it was outside of the city walls, you know, it was cheaper, it was a little bit more dangerous, you know,.

A little drink in absinthe.

Yeah, artists, I mean, all the good stuff, you know.

But anyway, that whole sort of street, that part near Le Piedu Couchant, there's always tons of turnover.

I mean, there's always, you know, renovation going on and new restaurants opening up.

But that little part of that street has always been open because.

And it wasn't for the type of restaurant that an aristocrat would go to.

It was really almost just for the people who worked at Les Halles.

The strong men of Les Halles, you know, with the big hats, they were le feu, the guys moving wicker baskets around with vegetables and fruit and meat and hauling the meat around to different parts of the market.

So, you know, when these guys, when these strongmen got out of les Halles at 3am or whatever time it was, they needed food.

And so they would usually go over to the street to basically get a bowl of, like, gratine d', al, like basically French onion soup, because it was the cheapest Thing around.

So soup, big deal.

In French restaurants, apparently soup is going to govern, you know, the very invention of the restaurant.

We're going to eat a lot of soup in restaurants.

And then there's another type of restaurant.

I mean, I don't know if we'd call it a restaurant now that we know what a restaurant is called.

Called a bouillon, which is another reference to soup.

So when does that kind of break off from the main restaurant trajectory?

Or is that really how we'd say it does?

I don't.

I don't know if it sort of broke off.

Yeah, it did sort of have its own trajectory.

Yes.

Right.

And no one was buying like the lower cut cuts as we call them, sort of like, not just like variety meats, but basically the long cooking cuts that like no one wants to deal with.

Or maybe at that time that, you know, people just wanted the tender, expensive cuts.

So what he decided to do was basically make a broth out of those cuts of meat and serve it in a restaurant.

A little bit like what Chantoiseau Boulanger was doing.

But this was going to be for the working man.

I mean, this was absolutely a very, very basic kind of thing.

And so he opened up this first sort of what I like to call the first fast food restaurant, really, and he opened up a bouillon and then it became sort of the family empire.

And I don't remember how many bouillon they had.

And you know, at the heyday, maybe like four or five.

And so that was really a very working class kind of environment.

You know, it was very, very cheap, cheap and cheerful.

And they're still cheap.

Wheels are still really cheap.

That is absolutely.

The whole idea is whether we're talking about a bouillon, like at the classic bouillon, like Bouillon Chartier or a neo bouillon, which is something that's going to be maybe a little bit more expensive, but you get better products, you get better ingredients.

You know, you might have like a farm egg as opposed to just a regular old hard boiled egg in your oeuf meu, in your egg mayo.

And the service is pretty much the same.

It's the kind of restaurant, because bouillon is definitely a type of restaurant.

You know, it's the kind of thing where they probably have paper on the table, you know, paper or tablecloth.

And I know at Chatier, for example, they write your order right on the, on that paper on the table.

They're a little bit gruff.

Depending.

A little bit.

A lot.

Yeah, depending on what happened.

When I went to Shati, like the guy, I have never, I think he was rolling his eyes so hard he was seeing the inside of his skull.

Anytime I asked, had the audacity to ask for water or salt.

Yeah, well, and that's the thing.

You just got to get right up in their business because they're hustling, right?

They're turning tables, totally.

But you're there to enjoy meal.

And so if you are meek at all about any of your behavior, then they're just gonna totally like steamroll right over you.

So you just have to give it back to them and they love it.

You've got to have that sense of repartee.

You know, it's a game, it's flirting.

It's discussing the most serious thing that we have to discuss in France, which is food and drink.

You've been here for a really long time, you know French culture inside and out, but you also interact with a lot of visitors because you are a guide.

And I think there's a lot of pieces of the restaurant puzzle in Paris because.

Because restaurants now of course exist outside of Paris and we're used to going to restaurants.

So someone comes here from wherever they're from, they sit down in a French restaurant and they can be surprised by a certain number of cultural codes.

And I think one of the big things that surprises people is that it's going to take a long time.

If you're going to eat in a restaurant, everything from placing your order to receiving your order to getting the bill is going to take time.

So can you tell us a little bit culturally, what does that mean?

Why.

Why is it taking so long?

Basically, it's, it's really.

It goes back to why French food is so important and why the French gastronomic meal is on the UNESCO list of intangible heritage.

I mean, that's one of the sort of precepts of that is this whole idea that your meal is a moment.

It's just a moment to be and enjoy and take pleasure in life, in the food, in the wine, in all the different courses that you're going to eat, whether it's a two, three course meal to a ten course meal in a Michelin star restaurant.

You're enjoying the wines, you're enjoying the interaction with the other people at your Table.

Because community and the people you're eating with is a really, really big part of that as well.

I was with some American clients in a Michelin star restaurant quite a few years ago, and the remark that they made was really funny because they said, I feel like I'm in church.

And I said, you are in France.

This restaurant, being in this environment, it's like going to church on Sunday, you know, it's really that important.

It's about respecting the work of the institution, which is touching on all those details.

And it also hearkens back to Boulanger, Chandoiseau.

It's restorative.

Yeah, it's a restorative moment to be.

To enjoy yourself, to indulge in someone else taking care of you, to appreciate and respect their vision for that, which is not just about the food, but about the decor, about the wine list, about the service.

And I think that we Americans tend to basically expect to actually receive whatever they want.

But you go to receive what these people are offering, and often there are small menus and you get what you get.

And I think, you know, substitutions are pretty heavily front on.

There's easier and more difficult substitutions that you can ask for.

And like, you know, if you are vegetarian or vegan and you go somewhere and they have a vegetarian dish, often they can make it vegan these days.

Like, they're.

I think they are more accommodating today than they used to be.

But it's, you know, you're not gonna go in and ask for, like, this is something that my family does.

My American family.

My mom will like, go to a restaurant.

My mom is gonna be so mad at me for saying this.

Sorry, Mom.

And be like, well, can I have green beans instead of broccoli?

And here they would be like, no, no.

Because there's probably.

I mean, those things are not in the same season at the same time either.

Or also they'll say like, you know, I've been somewhere where it's like, oh, I'd like beef bourguignon, and it comes with cookiettes.

And can I have it with mashed potatoes?

And they're like, no, that's not the dish.

No.

Yeah.

No, that's not what we have.

The chef gets to decide.

Yeah.

What you are eating.

Right.

The chef is the supreme authority.

And I know that sounds extremely rigid, but it is.

The reason why the French meal is something that has been preserved for so many years and even improved upon is because there is this very rigid structure.

And that's something that the French will always defend.

If you could offer one piece of advice to someone who's coming to Paris and they say, I want a restaurant experience, that's going to change my mind about restaurants, would you tell them to go to a bouillon?

Would you tell them to go to a fine dining restaurant?

Would you tell them to go to a bistro, a brasserie?

Where would you send them?

Okay.

To change their mind about restaurants, about.

French restaurants, or to make them understand, live, live this experience, this culture that we've been talking about.

What makes French restaurants so special?

Where, where should they go to see that best?

I would say a Michelin star restaurant.

Absolutely.

And it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be several stars.

It can be a one star restaurant because that's already an experience in and of itself.

And it can be at lunch, which isn't even the biggest.

I mean, you can go to a Michelin starred restaurant for lunch for like €40.

I would say maybe more like 50, 52 is the, like the lowest.

Okay.

But let's put aside the, you know, the budgetary concerns for the moment because I mean, you're not actually paying that much for what you're getting in return.

So they're also all staffed by like armies of interns.

Yeah.

And well, but also you have to consider that, I mean, profit margins for gastronomic restaurants are really, really narrow, minuscule.

They are paying so much for the raw material, the ingredients that, I mean, it's, it's really, even like for fish is the worst, I think, I mean, I think in restaurants they're charging maybe like 1.5, like times the cost of the buying the fish, like, that's insane.

You know, they're making up for it on beverages.

So when they're asking you what kind of water you want, whether it's going to be, you know, still water or sparkling water, and you're buying water, you don't have to, you can always ask for a carafe.

But I would say in a Michelin star restaurant, go with the flow and buy water because you're saving that restaurant from like ruin, basically by ordering wines, by ordering bottled water, by ordering dessert, because then the margins are a little bit higher.

And you're paying for artistry, you're paying for craftsmanship, you're paying for all this training, this muscle memory.

The whole staff in the kitchen that is absolutely entirely focused on creating pleasure for you.

And that is priceless as far as I'm concerned.

And you know, those are the kind of restaurants where, as we mentioned, you've got that very hushed, reverential atmosphere because you're just so concentrated on the flavors, the interactions of different flavors in your mouth, the wines, how they're paired with the food.

Maybe your friends, your partners, you're just having this extremely pleasurable experience together.

Gosh, that sounds a little bit raunchy, almost.

I love it.

It sounds perfect.

Yeah.

I love it anyway.

But it's such a special thing.

And it's funny because I guess I'm kind of like, I'm not desensitized.

I'm not desensitized to it because I still.

It still lifts me up and makes me so happy.

But, like, we do it.

I do it a few times a year.

Yeah.

And that's.

That's a privilege.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it is.

It's like going to the theater.

Yeah.

You know, it's a performance.

Yeah.

And in, like, literally, like, I want everybody to understand, like, we're talking about also a lot of people.

These are places that employ a lot of people, like going to the ballet.

Yeah.

There's a team of people in the kitchen and the front of house and in the cellar and cleaning.

The number of people that these places need to give you the experience that you're having, like, all behind the scenes, it's incredible.

It's extraordinary.

It really is.

And that's what, you know, part of what makes it such a special experience, because all of these people are dedicated to this pursuit of pleasure.

And I just.

I love that.

I love that about France.

Allison, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.

We have learned so much, and I'm sure all our listeners have learned a lot about restaurants, and hopefully you'll come to France.

France with a slightly different mindset.

When you walk into a French restaurant, knowing all this history, knowing the cultural weight of it, and hopefully that'll make you enjoy the experience even more.

This has been the real Fishwives of Paris.

Thank you so much.

Alison.

Thank you for having me.

It's been a pleasure.

Au revoir.