Have you heard of a mechanical table that allows food to appear from the floor below? To ensure privacy, these tables were designed so that the servants stayed on the floor below and used cranks to raise the dishes of food to the table above.

I looked at two examples of these 18th century mechanical tables, both in Russia. I’m not sure if they exist elsewhere.

The first is in a “hermitage” built by architect J. Braunstein for Czar Peter I between 1721 and 1725 (pictured above). Peter was inspired by similar retreats that he saw in Europe. The one he had built in Peterhof was a small two-storey pavilion surrounded by a moat. On the lower floor were a kitchen, pantry, and closets for the servants. The centre of the 14-person table could be lowered to this floor, where the meal was laid out before being raised up. The hermitage became a museum in 1952.

Peter’s daughter Empress Elizabeth had her own, more sumptuous, pavilion constructed between 1744 and 1754. At the main table the place settings could be lowered and raised separately and there were four other mechanical tables, each a different shape, in the corners of the room. Guests could actually write their requests on their place setting and then have their order sent up!

Check out some pictures of the Peterhof hermitage pavilion and the one at Tsarskoye Selo. You can watch a short video of a mechanical table in action here.