Everyone Is Equal Before Food

One Bowl soon became packed.

At first, most of the customers were guests at the Kleber Hotel and servants who had come to Maison Monbel to make reservations.

But within days, the villagers began following the smell inside, and after about a week, merchants from the nearby market were taking up seats every lunchtime.

Then people from farther away began to appear.

“Is this the place that sells hot broth?”

When a merchant who had arrived by carriage asked that, I quietly drank water in my corner while pretending to be a customer and tearing off pieces of bread.

Rumors travel fast.

Especially rumors about cheap, delicious food.

Maison Monbel had spread through aristocratic circles, but One Bowl spread by word of mouth among ordinary people.

A servant staying at the hotel ate there and told a coachman, the coachman told people in the stables, and the market merchant ate there for lunch and told his business associates...