About Cartelier
The living history of restaurants & bars.
Menus are the most ephemeral documents in culture — printed for a single evening, replaced the next morning, and almost never kept. Cartelier preserves them: what was served, who was responsible for it, what recognition they held, and how all of it changed over time.
What Cartelier answers
What did a restaurant serve on a particular night?
When did a dish first appear — and how did its price move?
Who was chef de cuisine when this menu was served?
What changed between yesterday's menu and today's?
Today the archive holds 132 venues and 1287 preserved menus — it grows with every capture.
How the record is kept
Time is first-class
Chefs change, prices change, stars change. Cartelier never overwrites a historical fact because something changed — every menu, role, and rating is recorded for the date it was true.
Provenance is mandatory
Every record traces to a source: the document it came from, the date it was captured, and a cryptographic hash of the original. Corrections create new records; originals are preserved.
Nothing is invented
If a menu doesn't state it, it isn't in the record. Missing dates stay missing rather than being guessed. Awards are documented from published sources — never issued by us.
Missing data is part of the narrative
An incomplete archive says so. Gaps invite contribution — restaurants and bars can claim their profile and complete their own history.
Verification language
Every menu carries its verification state, displayed wherever the record appears:
- Official source — captured from the venue's own published materials.
- Verified by restaurant — confirmed by the venue's claimed team.
- Recovered from archive — restored from historical web archives or contributed documents.
- Date inferred — the document carries no printed date; the estimate is labeled, never silently asserted.
Preservation is the product.
A menu observed today that disappears tomorrow cannot be reconstructed by anyone, ever. That is why the archive exists.