When Is A Restaurant A Bistro?

"Restaurant" is a generic term that tells you little about what kind of eatery you're going to. A refined, Michelin-starred establishment is a restaurant; so is a dingy hole in the wall where you toss your empty peanut shells on the floor. But a bistro? That's a little more specific, a little more classy. It brings to mind red checkered tablecloths, baskets of warm, crackly bread, and bottles of wine that flow as freely as the Seine. But what exactly is a bistro, and where did the term come from?

Although the word "bistro" has a fancy connotation stateside, French bistros are generally modest establishments. You're not likely to find fussily tweezered dishes or molecular gastronomy in a bistro. Instead, the name of the game is hearty, comforting "peasant food," the virtues of which is one of the many lessons we can take from the Pixar film "Ratatouille." Typically, this type of cooking results in dishes such as beef bourguignon and savory pies like hachis Parmentier. If bistro has become a byword for a somewhat upscale restaurant of any kind, that's because, well, most people associate French food with fanciness, making it easy for restauranteurs to put on airs this side of the Atlantic.

It's unclear why, exactly, these establishments became known as bistros. The "Dictionnaire de l'Académie Française," the official French language dictionary, connects the term to a word meaning "innkeeper," but also considers other etymologies including bistraud which means "little servant." Another origin, discredited by most linguists, is that Russian troops occupying Paris in 1814 might have chanted "bistro!" when ordering food and drinks at a café as this word means "fast" in Russian. (These kinds of cute origin stories pop up all the time in food history and very rarely turn out to be true.)

As for when the word became attached to modest French eateries, that's a little more clear. From the 17th century, the go-to phrase used to describe a low-cost restaurant in France was "gargote," but bistro gradually replaced it as the establishments grew in popularity. By the 19th and 20th centuries, bistros were all the rage. Far from just a place to eat, they were seen as a sort of communal place where various members of society could mix together. This idealized perception of the bistro remains to this day. That's one of the reasons why restaurateurs around the world continue to use the term; it invokes a kind of warm sentiment that appeals to most people.