The Invention of the RestaurantWinner of the Louis Gottschalk Prize Winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize "Witty and full of fascinating details." Los Angeles Times Why are there restaurants? Why would anybody consider eating alongside perfect strangers in a loud and crowded room to be an enjoyable pastime? To find the answer, Rebecca Spang takes us back to France in the eighteenth century, when a restaurant was not a place to eat but a quasi medicinal bouillon not unlike