List of restaurant terminology

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

A *garde manger* chaud froid dish, used as a display piece

86 – a term used when the restaurant has run out of, or is unable to prepare a particular menu item. The term is also generally used to mean getting rid of someone or something, including the situation where a bar patron is ejected from the premises and refused readmittance.^[1]
À la carte
All you can eat
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"^[2]
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

References

^ Selk, Avi (2018-06-23). "Why a small-town restaurant owner asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave — and would do it again". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2018-06-23. If you've ever heard the term "to 86 someone," it comes from the restaurant industry — code for a table eviction.
^ "byob". Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. HarperCollins. Retrieved April 17, 2013.