The purpose of the article is to outline the main stages of the development of the catering system in Russia, approached separately from the system of taverns, on the one hand, and from the hotel business, on the other. Such approach is caused by the fact that historians have only considered the formation of the public catering sphere fragmentarily, and mostly in popular literature. The research starts with the analysis of the 16th century, when the sources began to consistently mention the realities associated with the sale of culinary products. The study ends with the period of 1914–1921, when the established system of catering institutions functioned in the extraordinary situation. The article clarifies some terms. In particular, the modern generic term “catering” only appeared in the early 20th century and originally had a narrow, strict sense. “Inn keeping” and then “tavern keeping” in different chronological periods meant different types of trade in culinary products. The basic legal definition of “establishments for tavern keeping” was formulated just in 1861. The article pays particular attention to the differences between taverns and inns, because, due to the nature of trade, both the contemporaries and the later scholars confused the types of establishments. The article relies mainly on legal materials, since it was regulations that created conditions for the functioning of the system and required adjustment to these conditions. At the same time, less attention was paid by scholars to the legal status of taverns than their sociocultural role. It remains unclear to what degree the rules declared by the law were transformed in the course of their adaptation to the living realities of everyday life. The study of the process of mutual adaptation of law and the organization of the tavern business requires a different type of sources. In this article, the author deliberately refrains from giving consideration to the sociocultural role of catering establishments and the evolution of the culinary component, since this is a topic for a separate study

The article examines the history of menu formation in the Russian public eating establishments in the19th and early 20th centuries. Taverns and pancake houses appeared in the 16th and 17th centuries. the main principles of cookery (its bread character, the use of grits or flour in all dishes and main drinks) are outlined on the basis of available sources of that time. There were important food bans (besides fasts): to eat blood, animal prey, calves, goats, pigeons, bears, etc. Due to these prohibitions medieval Russian cuisine did not use finely chopped raw meat (minced meat), respectively, there were no sausages and pates. The materials of archaeological research allow to determine the ratio of the main elements in the diet of medieval urban dwellers and cooking technology. The author pays special attention to the evolution of stoves and hearths, the gradual development of the construction of the Russian oven at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries. She traces the innovations of the late 17th and 18th centuries, reveals the intensifi cation of the innovation process in the 18th century and its influence on both kitchen equipment and new ways of making butter, sour cream, sauces, etc. The article briefly deals with the evolution of 18th-century cookbooks from the formation of the genre (ca. the 1730s) to the generalized compilations of the 1790s and examines their vocabulary and structure. It is noteworthy that their authors were not cooks, but officials-translators looking for literary work. The author suggests the existence of a handwritten collection of recipes for the traditional Russian cuisine, known to the compilers of culinary compilations in the 18th century. She focuses on the adaptation of new dishes, drinks, foods, and the special role of eating establishments (eateries, taverns, herbergs) in this process. Through the example of tea-drinking the author demonstrates the way of transformation of the earlier unknown dishes into the customary and widespread ones, which became the attributes of traditional tavern cuisines by the middle of the 19th century.