French Influences on American Food: French Restaurants

By the early nineteenth century, the French influence was clearly visible on the menus of America’s restaurants. Most Americans ate at home during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Taverns, saloons, public houses, and inns served mainly travelers. Restaurants were opened toward the end of the eighteenth century, mostly by French refugees. Their clientele consisted of businessmen and an increasingly affluent upper class. In 1827Joseph Collet opened a French restaurant on the lower floor of his Commercial Hotel on Broad Street in New York. Eight years later Collet sold his hotel and restaurant to the Swiss emigrés John, Peter, and Lorenzo Delmonico. The Delmonico brothers had established a café and pastry shop in New York in 1827, and ten years later they opened what became known as Delmonico’s Restaurant. From its inception it offered a variety of French dishes. Delmonico’s was only one among many of the restaurants in American cities that served French food during the nineteenth century.