Questions

Cartelier is a historical database of restaurants and bars: their menus, dishes, drinks, prices, people, and accolades, preserved over time. Every record keeps its source, capture date, and a cryptographic hash of the original document, so the archive can answer what was served on a given date — years later.

From venues' own published materials — menu pages and documents on their websites — from documents uploaded by verified venue teams, and from historical web archives. Every menu records which of these it came from, and unchanged documents are never re-processed: content is identified by hash, not by URL.

A date printed on the document itself is authoritative. When a date comes from anywhere weaker — a filename, a URL, or upload metadata — the record says so, and when no date can be established the menu is labeled undated rather than guessed. Estimates are always labeled as inferred.

Create an account, open your venue's page, and choose Claim. Verification confirms you represent the venue — through a venue email address or manual review, which resolves within two business days. Claiming is free, there is no advertising, and your record remains attributed to you.

Yes. Verified venue teams can correct extraction mistakes, add missing menus, and update their profile. Corrections create new revisions — the original captured document is always preserved alongside the corrected interpretation, so the provenance trail stays intact.

Never. Cartelier documents recognition — Michelin stars, James Beard awards, World's 50 Best rankings and others — as it stood on a given date, from published sources. Awards are recorded with their year and source, not issued, and historical ratings are never overwritten when they change.

It marks a date or menu the archive knows should exist but hasn't recovered. Missing data is part of the narrative: gaps are shown honestly and venues can fill them by uploading historical menus — printed, photographed, or filed.

Because a dish is a history, not a row. Cartelier records each appearance with the exact description as printed, so you can see when a dish first appeared, how its wording evolved, and how its price or supplement moved over the years.

A public API is planned for researchers, publications, and hospitality groups. The archive's canonical identifiers are stable by design. If you have a research or commercial use in mind, get in touch through the hospitality page.

Public profiles are maintained from public sources until claimed. Once verified, your team controls uploads and corrections; changes go through review policies, every privileged change is audit-logged, and platform staff never invent content on your behalf.