The first French "restaurat" was in New York, in 1821?

[Joel S. Berson]

I'm amused by two details in Michael's column:

1)  It starts:

[Q] From Peter Hill, Canada: One eats in a restaurant run by a
restaurateur. Where did the n disappear to, and when?

[A] It didn't disappear. It was never there in the first place.

So Joseph Collet's "restaurat" was the correct original form!

2)  "In late medieval times, restaurant turned into an adjective and
began to refer in particular to a restorative foodstuff, especially soup."

So when Joseph Collet advertised "soups of every description," his
was a genuine French restaurat.

Joel

At 2/3/2010 12:43 PM, Michael Quinion wrote:
> > For "restaurant", the OED's earliest citation is 1827.  (Still a "2nd
> > edition 1989" entry, so the gnomes likely have mined to a lower
> > stratum by now.  And perhaps to be updated shortly; in December the
> > "revised range" arrived at "reputeless.")
>
>An interesting antedating! The earliest example I was previously aware of
>was one from The Times of 15 October 1822, which I unearthed and included
>in a piece about "restaurateur" a year ago
>
>   http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-res2.htm
>
>
>--
>Michael Quinion
>Editor, World Wide Words
>E-mail: wordseditor at worldwidewords.org
>Web: http://www.worldwidewords.org
>
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