Women dining in public

...
The arrival of women on the restaurant scene in the last quarter of the century was as much a display of economics as emancipation. The dinner party had become an entertainment in itself and not just a prelude to something else, but the new service à la russe – our current system of dish following dish – put domestic staff under extreme pressure. A budget of 16 shillings a head, including wine, was thought about right for a dinner party at home. Given the standard price of dinner in the West End was half a guinea, it was cheaper and more glamorous to entertain in restaurant-land.
...