Food: from a shared altar to a private screen – a journey into the cold heart of modern food

Source: The birth of the restaurant: when the French Revolution invented the menu

"The first Parisian restaurant worthy of the name was the one established by Beauvilliers in 1782... He introduced the innovation of indicating the available dishes on a menu (Carte) and serving them at small individual tables. [...] The Revolution, which destroyed the world of the French aristocracy, cast all the skilled cooks into the street; in order to survive, they became restaurateurs."

(Larousse Gastronomique [The Encyclopedia of the Food World], "Restaurant" entry)

Explanation: From the shared tavern to the private table: the revolution of culinary individualism

The restaurant was born in revolutionary Paris when the aristocracy's chefs lost their jobs. Before that, people ate the "dish of the day" at taverns around a shared table. The restaurant introduced privacy (individual tables), choice (a menu), and culinary individualism.

Perspective: The culinary theater that became refueling: restaurant, app, and the loss of the gaze

The modern restaurant is a theater with a stage (an open kitchen) and stars (chefs), but Wolt and delivery culture have brought down the curtain. We have turned food from a social event into an industrial act of "refueling" in front of the TV. We pick food on an app the way we pick socks, drifting further and further from the hands that prepared it. The courier at the door is the most important person in our evening, yet he is merely an instrument, like his scooter, nothing more. We have lost the communality of eating—the gaze, the conversation, the ritual.

Going Deeper: Abraham's tent versus the restaurant: a communal altar or the altar of the self?

In Judaism, the archetype is "Abraham’s tent"—open to all four winds, free of charge, with a host who runs toward the guest. The restaurant is the exact opposite: a closed door, a host at the entrance, and a bill on the way out. While the Jewish table (like the Hasidic tish, a communal gathering around a rebbe's table, or the Shabbat table) is an altar designed to unite the community around a single shared pot, the restaurant and the individual menu sanctify the "I" and the separate choice of each diner. Still, this deserves a qualification: a restaurant turns eating into dining, an event where we go out with family and friends, even if there are different dishes and a bill at the end. So while restaurants are no substitute for holiday and Shabbat meals or family milestones, they certainly carry greater meaning during the workaday week.

Culture: The Bear: kitchen chaos and the search for meaning behind the stove

The series The Bear (2022)—a young chef who worked at the world's finest Michelin-starred restaurants returns to run his family's failing sandwich shop in Chicago. The show portrays the kitchen not as a glamorous fantasy, but as it truly is: cramped, sweltering, and brutal. One of its high points comes in an episode shot entirely in a single continuous, unedited 18-minute take. The viewer is sucked into pure chaos—shrieking ticket machines, burning meat, and blaring timers—until you can genuinely feel the tightness in your chest.

Yet beyond the chaos, the series speaks to why people work in kitchens. Not for the money or the glory, but for a sense of belonging and a search for meaning. A chef is an artist—someone who wants to bring pleasure to others, who thrives on the tension and pressure of the line, and who wants to express their creativity with raw ingredients, fleeting though they may be.