PETALING JAYA, Oct. 4 -- What is the function of a restaurant? Plainly, it is a business that serves food and beverages to customers.

But beyond the commercial and financial incentives behind any business, restaurants are unique in how widely they vary: from bare-bones operations where the relationship between customer and business is purely transactional, like a fast-food outlet, to high-concept, luxury establishments where dessert comes with a side of discourse, and then the bill.

Restaurants often serve more than one purpose, though.

The oldest, and perhaps most essential, can be gleaned from the word itself, taken from the French restaurer, "to restore".

Restaurants feed us in a physical sense, yes, but they also nourish us, and t...