Restauration a.a.O.

Restauration a.a.O. is a place to eat out ...
a.a.O. is an academic abbreviation for "am angegebenen Ort" (English: op cit. – in the work referred to). Restauration a.a.O. has neither premises nor regular opening hours; the place and time of the culinary event will be announced on this website, by newsletter and in the daily press. Notification by letter is also possible.

One could also describe Restauration a.a.O. as a construct of ideas, opened at different times in different places – perhaps in an empty shop, a workshop, a gallery, a museum or any similar place where the mobile kitchen can be set up.

The number of places at table depends on the venue and the type of food. A meal of several courses is laid on, along with information about the dishes' origins and histories in a brief talk and a hand-produced booklet.

This service is  made for guests who are receptive to the pleasures of unusual and unfamiliar dishes. It's not the intention to shock diners with such post-dadaist gestures as invitations to consume testicles, udders, tripe, eyes and the like (while never excluding the possibility), but the Restauration a.a.O. dining table will nevertheless offer encounters with the strange and unfamiliar.

'Restaurant' and 'restoration' are both derived from the idea of recovery, of reinstatement. In this sense one can also expect almost-forgotten dishes that were once part of our cuisine. Along with culinary excursions to other realms there will also be menues evolved from particular and universal principles of cookery: mincing and mixing, insides and outsides or stews for instance.

Whatever the pleasures of discourse, the emphasis at these multifarious events lies firmly on the tongue as an organ of taste rather than an organ of speech.

Restauration a.a.O. guests must expect to be spared every manifestation of exotic theme catering: arrangements, potpourri, carpacchio, variations on etc..., desserts smothered in icing sugar, pretentious amuse gueules, well-meant table decorations, background music,  pictures on the walls and suchlike nonsense.

Restauration a.a.O. is a culinary project by Dieter Froelich.
During Visual Arts studies at the Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, Dieter Froelich also attended seminars by Peter Kubelka, who taught cookery as an artistic genre. The present project continues Froelich's series of gastronomic events.