Twenty twenty has been tough on restaurants. While cities and countries have gone in and out of (and back into) lockdown, restaurants and cafés have had to close their doors for months at a time, or shake up their business models, delivering food locally or selling groceries from their empty tables instead.
As the world tentatively opens back up, there are some much-loved establishments that sadly haven’t been able to weather the disruption this year’s global crisis has caused and that will never reopen. It’s not all bad news, though, as these colourful maps prove.
The infographics, which split the world up into six areas, are a guided tour of the oldest restaurants on the planet.
These long-running institutions are still serving customers today, and are a reminder that cities and their finest places to eat out have survived much more than everything the first half of 2020 has thrown at them.
The maps display the oldest restaurant in nearly every country on the planet, from Wilton’s in London, which has been dishing up seafood since 1742, to The White Horse Tavern in Rhode Island, USA, which has been open since 1673 and holds the title of the oldest restaurant in North America.
The maps are colour-coded to show which period each country’s oldest spot opened in, the most ancient being navy blue. Each restaurant on the map also has a speciality dish, so you know what to order if you ever find yourself there for dinner.
Europe has the highest proportion of historic restaurants, but also the most countries and intact data. The continent boasts the oldest restaurant on the planet, according to NetCredit, who put the maps together. That’s St Peter Stiftskulinarium in Salzburg, which was first mentioned in a poem in 803 AD, and is still serving up elegant Austrian cuisine to this day.
Fingers crossed lockdown hasn’t forced any of these storied spots to close their kitchens for good, eh?
ICYMI: The owners of London’s oldest businesses reflect on how they’ve survived the toughest of times.