discrimination in access to goods and services — a discussion that echoes from the „whites only restaurants“ combated by the US Civil Rights Act to the subtle forms of exclusion present today in the European Union.6 In both scenarios, the restaurant ceases to be a mere gastronomic setting and becomes a democratic microcosm: each unfair refusal is equivalent to a micro-violation of the constitution; each guaranteed access is a concrete affirmation of dignity. To develop this argument, the article will follow four steps. First, it will situate the restaurant in the contemporary legal context, highlighting its hybrid nature and the normative tensions that run through it. Next, it will explore the constitutional and international foundations that underpin freedom of access, beyond consumer rights. The third part will be devoted to critical hermeneutics itself, rejecting the easy solutions of decisionism and proposing a constitutionally appropriate reading of the problem. Finally, paradigmatic cases will illustrate concrete challenges and possible responses. Ultimately, the aim is to demonstrate that freedom of access to restaurants is not a luxury or a whim, but an indicator of the concrete realisation of equality in its most everyday dimension — and, precisely for this reason, its most fundamental. I. THE RESTAURANT IN THE CONTEMPORARY LEGAL CONTEXT The restaurant is a multifaceted legal entity that clearly reveals how the classic categories of law — property, contract, freedom — clash with the constitutional principles of equality and dignity. Its nature is ambivalent: although it is a private enterprise, it operates as a space of public access, since the very essence of the activity presupposes openness to the community. This paradox – private in ownership, public in operation – requires a legal interpretation that goes beyond traditional contractual dogma.7 Historically, civil law doctrine has described restaurants as consumer relationships: on the one hand, the supplier offering goods and services; on the other, the consumer who accepts the proposed conditions. However, this interpretation proves insufficient when the issue at stake is not only the quality of the food or the setting of prices, but the possibility of refusing access to certain people. Contractual freedom, in this context, cannot be seen as absolute 6 United States. Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title II – Public Accommodations. Cf. also: European Union. Directive 2000/43/EC on equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin. 7 QUIQUEREZ, Alexandre. Gastronomie et droit. Paris: Larcier–Intersentia, 2022. 587 FREEDOM OF ACCESS TO RESTAURANTS
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