Restaurants, coffee houses, kitchens and more: How the restaurant business developed in the Russian Empire

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Today restaurants and cafes in the Russian open spaces are a common occurrence. You can find establishments for gourmets and for those who want a quick bite to eat, for romantic dates and for banquets on a grand scale, for every taste and budget. But a few centuries ago, everything was different. This review is about how inns, kitchens, coffee shops, restaurants and other catering establishments appeared in the Russian Empire.

Restaurants - come in and have a drink

Initially, taverns were not created at all so that commoners could relax in them after hard work. Wealthy people, as well as respectable foreign guests, visited these establishments with pleasure. For example, one of the first taverns in St. Petersburg was opened in 1720 and was located on Troitskaya Square. It was the Tavern House. He became famous thanks to Peter I, a lover of aniseed vodka. Anisovka in the Tavern House was excellent, and the tsar would gladly visit the tavern to take a break from vain affairs.

But not only due to anisovka, taverns were kept afloat. Foreigners, who quickly realized how much profit can be obtained from such establishments, offered delicious dishes from abroad. In fact, this kind of institution can be safely classified as a modern restaurant.

Years flew by, the great Peter passed away. Inns gradually began to lose their luster. The owners were banned from billiards, vodka and beer also fell out of favor, the waiters became "sexual". What was left? Cheap wine, inexpensive and unpretentious food. The effect was not long in coming: the poor people felt the charm of the tavern. Kabatskaya wave swept Russian cities. (By the way, back in 1746 the word "tavern" that gave off vodka was replaced by "drinking establishment", trying to smooth out the "disgust" from drunkenness.) Workers and artisans, cabbies and just vagabonds stayed up in taverns until morning in order to go to work directly from there or let's hit the road. Few establishments managed to resist and not turn into places noisy, dirty, packed to capacity, where fights and showdowns happened regularly.

Restaurants: the French are advancing

Restoration. A beautiful name that has now been transformed into a restaurant. The first restaurants appeared at hotels at the beginning of the 19th century. And again, foreigners were the first to place their bets! For many years they kept such establishments, taking advantage of the popularity of everything "English" and French. The French were very successful in this, the fashion for Parisian outfits and the French language was rampant. She got to the meal. High society representatives and lovers of a beautiful life met in a restaurant of some Pierre or Jacques to taste French delicacies.

The restaurants created the illusion of chic and luxury. Visitors were served here not by grimy "sex", but by "people". And these were no longer guys in shirts and aprons, but polite employees in white gloves, shining bibs and black tailcoats. The head waiter also worked in a perfectly ironed tailcoat, who waited for the visitors, met them and masterfully guided the waiters.

The golden youth quickly appreciated the charm of the emerging establishments. Waking up at about 2 or 3 pm, the young sloths headed to the restaurant to show off their nightly adventures and new costumes. And, of course, have lunch. Ladies began to visit such places much later, in the middle of the 19th century, and they were allowed to pass only when paired with a man.

It was a period of kitsch and ostentatious luxury. The main thing is to lure you at any cost! Huge mirrors were bought, winter gardens with fountains and birds were erected, tubs with unknown plants were placed, even peacocks wandered sadly in the halls. And the menu … There was something to please the stomach that was bored with food. If you want fresh fruit, please! Rare wines from France, delicious truffles and fatty goose liver from the outskirts of Paris - it will be fulfilled! Belgian and Swiss sweets - this minute!

Coffee shops, tea shops and pastry shops for those with a sweet tooth

And again, the fashion was introduced by the progressive Peter I, who not only fought with beards and dressed his servants with elegant chic, but also loved coffee. The drink was worth mere pennies and was available to everyone. Of course, in the 19th century, Russian coffee houses were significantly inferior to foreign establishments of the "coffee" direction. Vissarion Belinsky noted that the common people of the male sex respect coffee and cigarettes, and the female sex from the common people can do without vodka and tea, but "absolutely cannot live without coffee."

The period of development of coffee houses and pastry shops coincided with the peak of fashion for foreign goods and food. After all, one's own, habitual, so quickly becomes boring and becomes uninteresting. Gingerbread and bagels, gingerbreads and Russian pies faded into the background. But there was no shortage of biscuits, ice cream, chocolate and marzipan. The flow of sweets from abroad had to be somehow directed, and the only way was to open a large number of dessert pastry shops in which any cake or pastry could be tasted. Overseas! True, sometimes it was made by a simple girl from a neighboring house, but these are trifles.

St. Petersburg again became the legislator of the first coffee houses, or rather coffee houses. The sweet life in the city was in full swing. In the establishments one could not only enjoy coffee, but also enjoy spectacular cakes, imported chocolate, sweet fruits, and drink lemonade. Hot food and alcohol, as well as playing billiards in coffee houses, were prohibited, otherwise they would have suffered the fate of taverns.

It is impossible not to recall the most famous coffee house in Russia at that time, "Cafe Wolf and Beranger", St. Petersburg. It was a cute establishment, opened in 1780 and fully Asian (China) style. Lermontov and Pushkin, Chernyshevsky and Pleshcheev, and other representatives of the creative intelligentsia dropped into a quiet corner. From this coffee house, Pushkin went to the Black River, where he was mortally wounded in a duel.

Writers, poets, artists did not lag behind fashion, often grandiose plans and unfortunate failures were discussed over a cup of coffee with an airy cake. If you could go back in time and go to the Swiss confectionery Lareda, you could see Turgenev, Zhukovsky, Griboyedov.

Many men visited patisseries to gawk at pretty Italians, German or French women who were hired by foreign owners. I must say that the prices in such establishments were quite high.

What about tea? What about him? Has coffee overshadowed this drink, which has been known in Russia since the 16th-17th centuries? No, and tea has found its place. Not so bohemian, but quite dignified. Shortly before the beginning of the 20th century, in 1882, tea houses began to open in Russia. Fresh bread and butter, milk, cream, sugar, dryers, crackers and a puffing samovar on which bagels were heated - this is a brief description of the tea house of those times. You could find such establishments at train stations, at post stations, along highways. Now their function is partially performed by cafes at gas stations.

Kuhmister or vintage business lunch

The beginning of the 18th century. In St. Petersburg and Moscow, the so-called "kuhmister tables" or simply kuhmister tables appear. They were visited by people whose wealth was modest by the standards of those times: not too rich merchants, artisans and minor officials. The most visited were the Greek kuhmister's, in which, despite the name, they were fed with Russian dishes. However, the national food could still be tasted. It was only necessary to find a place where the owner was a Caucasian, Pole, Tatar or German.

Lunch could be bought for 30-45 kopecks. Undoubtedly, it was profitable, especially since the owners of the kitchens offered food subscriptions. You pay a chervonets - a ruble discount.

The Kuhmisterskys tried to create in the city center and keep them open around the clock. Nobody paid much attention to such trifles as dirt, stuffiness and location in the basement. Didn't like the place - could take lunch home. This is exactly what the bachelors and students did, who did not have enough money for a restaurant or a home cook, but there was plenty of pride. The Kuhmistersky can be called the progenitors of modern banquet halls, as they were often used for weddings, christenings, anniversaries. Sometimes establishments were opened next to cemeteries, especially for funeral dinners.

By the end of the 19th century, kuhmister restaurants, with their abundant cheap food, began to be replaced by canteens, where visitors chose portioned breakfast, lunch or dinner. The establishments worked exclusively during the day, because officials and working people tried to run into them in order to satisfy their hunger and get back to work in time. Yes, the menu was not very varied, but clean.

A daily set consisting of certain dishes was usually put on the counter. Today it is fashionable to call this option a business lunch. There were also subscriptions. By purchasing a ticket for a month, a regular client received a personal locker for storing small things and even his own cutlery. By the way, the habit of wiping forks and knives in a public place with a napkin has been preserved by many Russians. What is it? Is it the genetic memory inherited from his great-grandfather, a lover of taverns?

It is interesting today to find out what they were Soviet-era Moscow restaurants … And although it seemed that not so much time had passed, everything was different in Soviet restaurants.