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Table d'hôte

Multi-course restaurant menu at fixed price

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Table d'hôte contrasts with à la carte, where customers may order any of the separately priced menu items available.

Etymology

Table d'hôte is a French loan phrase that literally means "the host's table". The term is used to denote a table set aside for residents of a guesthouse (French: chambre d'hôtes), who presumably sit at the same table as their host.

The meaning shifted to include any meal featuring a set menu at a fixed price. The use in English is documented as early as 1617, while the later extended use, now more common, dates from the early nineteenth century.

In France, the term began in inns where guests ate at a common table, called the "host's table" (though the host typically did not sit with the guests). By the end of the seventeenth century, similar meals were being hosted by other eateries (cabarets and traiteurs), and were initially known as "inn's tables" (tables d'auberge). This practice of serving a set meal at a collective table became the most common way of dining in public in Paris until the development of the restaurant. Places which offered tables d'hôte sometimes also allowed à la carte ordering. The term continued to be used with the advent of the restaurant, expanding to include service at individual tables.

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