! ! Restaurant

Restaurant; trattoria; tapas-bar; weinstuben; sushi; cafeteria; eaterie; drive-by; gastro-pub… what’s in a name? A meal by any other name would smell as good… In 1765, M. Boulanger (well named) , a humble soup-vendor, opened an establishment, whose soups and broths he rightly called ‘restaurant’, for they were restorative… Watch this old French film: its very flickering and jerking seems to give it life: waiters in their long aprons, whisk in and out to serve these terrace tables which we’re watching as that accordeon wheezes, or the barrel-organ evocatively, endlessly, rolls out its sentiments.. black berets; scarves; thoughtful Gauloise smoke; the girls, neat hair; that simple chic that rich and poor Parisiennes seem alike to share; this contented man, almost a stereotype (and yet, he lives a life..) , rather overweight, has evidently just emptied his plate, lights his cigar; complacent? Or, in so civilised a measure, restored to his former self? This pair of lovers, evidently having had a tiff, their coffees yet undrunk, talk into each other’s pleadfire eyes, reaching in them for a heart; ah, now she stretches out her hand across the table to seek his; the accordeon plays its triumphant banality: their love, restored.. See there, at the furthest table, that heavy, bereted, pipe-smoking man who writes intensely; looks up briefly; curtly indicates to that young girl to sit with him, but not to interrupt: isn’t that face familiar, at this Left Bank table? Is he restoring a familiar world to sing the barrel-organ’s tune; or looking into a nothingness, a being, a becoming, which will in time, shatter all café-table minds, steal waiters from their life of service, yield Calais’s burghers to Hamburg’s faster food? … or will the world read; worship for a space; and then, from black-clad existentialness, restore itself to brighter mental dress? Café tables, open to the warm Spring air: so old a tune, perhaps; but love is there..