QUESTION: What exactly is a 'Ristorante'? Is it like a 'Restaurant'?
ANSWER: Yes. 'Ristorante' is the Italian word for 'Restaurant'. Both words are derived from the Latin word 'Restaurare'. Yet in actuality this word in Latin meant to restore. You see, going out to dinner represents a break. It's almost recreational. Thus the roots of the word Restaurant are of the same ilk as recreation. Recreation 're-creates' you and a Restaurant is etymologically supposed to 'restore'.Originally though, the word applied to food and not to an establishment.
The legend has it that in 1765 a man named Boulanger began to serve soup at his establishment in Paris. He promoted the soup as a kind of tonic that could re-energize his customers -- restore their strength for the rest of the day. And so he hung a sign outside, advertising the fact that he had this soup for sale and that the soup was a 'restore-ant'.
From Paris the word eventually spread to other languages and became
forever attached to a business serving food. And the precise definition and everyday
usage in the respective languages should be nearly identical.
In Italian it became Ristorante. In
Russian it became the word "Ресторан",
which is transliterated as Ryestoran. The word
Restaurant showed up in English about 1827. It is in the story "The
Prairie", written by James Fenimore Cooper. He wrote that a
particular food was as delicious as "any served under the same name, at the
boasted chop-houses of London, or at the most renowned of the Parisian restaurants".
QUESTION:
Then what exactly is a 'Trattoria'? How does it differ from a 'Ristorante'?
ANSWER: