This is a list of restaurant terminology. A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money, either paid before the meal, after the meal, or with a running tab. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearance and offerings, including a wide variety of the main chef's cuisines and service models.
Restaurant terminology
- 86 – a term used when the restaurant has run out of, or is unable to prepare a particular menu item. Increasingly; when a bar patron is ejected from the premises and refused readmittance. Usually it is only for the rest of that night, though if the patron is especially violent, the ban may be for a longer term or even permanently.
- À la carte
- Bartender
- Blue-plate special
- Brigade de cuisine
- BYOB – an initialism standing for "bring your own bottle", "bring your own beer", "bring your own beverage", or "bring your own booze"
- Charcuterie
- Chef
- Chef de cuisine - also called "head chef" or "master chef"
- Chef's table
- Combination meal
- Cooked to order – food that is cooked to a patron's directions
- Counter meal
- Counter service
- Dine and dash
- Early bird dinner
- Entrée
- Family meal
- Fast food
- Free lunch
- Garde manger
- Ghost restaurant – a restaurant that operates exclusively via food delivery
- Gueridon service
- Happy hour
- Kids' meal
- Main course
- Maître d'hôtel
- Meat and three
- Meat and two veg – a British dish consisting of meat served with two varieties of vegetables
- Menu
- Mise en place
- Monkey dish – a small (3" or 5 cm) bowl used for sauces, nuts, or as a repository for bones or citrus peel
- Omakase
- On the fly
- One bowl with two pieces
- Online food ordering
- Plate lunch
- Platter (dinner)
- Rôtisseur
- Saucier
- Serving cart
- Signature dish
- Sous-chef – the chef who is second in command within a kitchen; sous meaning "under"
- Table d'hôte – a menu in which multi-course meals with only a few choices are charged at a fixed total price
- Table reservation
- Table service
- Table sharing
- Take-out
- Three-martini lunch
- Value meal
See also
- Brigade de cuisine of Culinary arts
- Diner lingo – a kind of American verbal slang used by cooks
- Food industry
- Types of restaurants
- Waiting staff
