Annie Gray

William Sitwell’s history of eating out reminds us painfully of what we’re missing

While rubbing salt in the wound, this survey of restaurants past and present could also provides vicarious entertainment

The Oyster Bar at Bibendum. Credit: Alamy

In the concluding chapter of this book the Daily Telegraph’s restaurant critic and recovering vegan-baiter William Sitwell muses on the collapse of Jamie Oliver’s empire last year: ‘His endeavour, passion and hard work wasn’t enough… it was part of a bursting bubble.’ Since then more mid-range chains have announced their imminent demise. Teetering before lockdown, it’s not just the prospect of months of closure and general uncertainty that’s pushing them over the brink but decades of oversupply and a reliance on a cynical model of successful restaurants selling on and out. This book feels timely: a reminder of what we currently can’t have, and how the sector came to be.


Sitwell is upfront about his book. He describes himself as a storyteller, and apologises for omitting places or people the reader might feel are missing, though I’m not sure this makes up for his giant leap from 1837 to 1923 without any mention of César Ritz or Auguste Escoffier, both regarded with good reason as seminal figures in the history of restaurants.

‘You rang, texted, emailed and facetimed, my lord?

The structure is neat. Eighteen chapters in (mainly) chronological order, purportedly set around a moment in time or a particular restaurant. Each begins with a useful précis; many continue with imaginary vignettes. We start on ‘a blazing hot day’ in AD 79 in the Inn of Primus in Pompeii and end with an enjoyably ludicrous description of Ovnew in Barcelona — though ‘mocking such a place is not a struggle’. On the way Sitwell takes us from the distribution of alms at the Sultan’s palace in 13th-century Constantinople, through cookshops in medieval London to the male-dominated coffee houses of the 17th century.

The accepted narrative of restaurant development points to the key era being the mid 18th century, when the English were flocking to taverns and the French came up with the concept of bouillon joints, aimed at genteel palates in need of a bit of TLC.

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