Restaurateur

Alternative forms

• restauranteur but see usage note

Origin

Borrowing from fr restaurateur.

Full definition of restaurateur

Noun

1. The owner of a restaurant.

Usage notes

This is also spelled restauranteur (with an ‘n’), but this is considered erroneous by some, and the form restaurateur (without the ‘n’) is preferred in formal writing, and especially in the United Kingdom.

restaurateur, restauranteur (nn.), Kenneth G. Wilson, The Columbia Guide to Standard American English, 1993

The form restaurateur (without the ‘n’) is the earlier form, borrowed from French, while the form restauranteur (with an ‘n’) = restaurant + -eur ("(agent) one who") is a later formation, from Anglicized forms, and thus seen by some as an etymological error.

However, restauranteur is widely used, and can be found in formal British writing.

See for instance Me and my travels: Raymond Blanc, restauranteur, in The Guardian and The Observer, 2008–10–12