A scene in what is thought to be the ancient capital of Kaifeng showing food stalls from a scroll titled 'Going Up the River at the Qingming Festival' by Zhang Zeduan, circa 1100.
According to Elliott Shore and Katie Rawson, co-authors of Dining Out: A Global History of Restaurants, the very first establishments that were easily recognizable as restaurants popped up around 1100 A.C. in China, when cities like Kaifeng and Hangzhou boasted densely packed urban populations of more than 1 million inhabitants each.
Trade was bustling between these northern and southern capitals of the 12th-century Song Dynasty, explains Shore, a professor emeritus of history at Bryn Mawr College, but Chinese tradesmen traveling outside their home city weren’t accustomed to the strange local foods.
“The original restaurants in those two cities are essentially southern cooking for people coming up from the south or northern cooking for people coming down from the north,” says Shore. “You could say the ‘ethnic restaurant’ was the first restaurant.”
These prototypical restaurants were located in lively entertainment districts that catered to business travelers, complete with hotels, bars, and brothels. According to Chinese documents from the era, the variety of restaurant options in the 1120s resembled a downtown tourist district in a 21st-century city. https://www.history.com/
Trade was bustling between these northern and southern capitals of the 12th-century Song Dynasty, explains Shore, a professor emeritus of history at Bryn Mawr College, but Chinese tradesmen traveling outside their home city weren’t accustomed to the strange local foods.
“The original restaurants in those two cities are essentially southern cooking for people coming up from the south or northern cooking for people coming down from the north,” says Shore. “You could say the ‘ethnic restaurant’ was the first restaurant.”
These prototypical restaurants were located in lively entertainment districts that catered to business travelers, complete with hotels, bars, and brothels. According to Chinese documents from the era, the variety of restaurant options in the 1120s resembled a downtown tourist district in a 21st-century city. https://www.history.com/
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