À la carte À la carte In restaurants, à la carte is the practice of ordering individual dishes from a menu in a restaurant, as opposed to "table d'hôte", where a set menu is offered. It is an early 19th century loan from French meaning "according to the menu". The individual dishes to be ordered may include side dishes, or the side dishes may be offered separately, in which case, they are also considered "à la carte". The earliest examples of "à la carte" are from 1816 for the adjectival use ("à la carte meal", for example) and from 1821 for the adverbial
Richard D'Oyly Carte manner... He took what other people thought were risks, but he felt were certainties. He knew everyone worth knowing... and his practical judgement was as sure as his sense of artistry." In 1874, Carte leased the Opera Comique, a theatre off the Strand, where he presented Charles Lecocq's new opéra bouffe "Giroflé-Girofla", given in French by the company who had premiered the work three months earlier in Brussels. He followed this with "The Broken Branch", an English adaptation of Gaston Serpette's "La branche cassée". Carte announced his ambitions on the front of the programme for the latter: "It is my