Hana

Small traveller's note: in older buildings, check whether the outside switch also controls the extractor fan, because they are very often wired together on a timer.

If you turn the light off at the wall as you leave, you sometimes cut the fan run-on with it, which is why some bathrooms in old guesthouses never seem to dry out. Leaving it on for a few minutes after a shower does more than any amount of window opening.

Fun detail that goes the other way: some American signs are more legible to a foreign driver than European ones, because the convention's symbols are not as self-explanatory as their fans claim.

Ask a group of new drivers what the European sign with a red circle and a black car overtaking another car means, or the one that is just a white circle with a diagonal band. Most can guess the first and almost nobody gets the second right without being taught it. Symbols still have to be learned; they only feel obvious once you have.

Door versus curtain is a genuinely good filter and it is usually visible in the photos. Adding it to my checklist.

The distinction you are drawing is exactly the right one, and it maps onto a real split in who cooks this food.

Themed restaurants sell an evening. The menu is modern food with old names, and the research budget went into the building. Fine as entertainment, useless for your purpose.

Historical reenactment groups are the opposite. Many of them take period cookery seriously, work from surviving manuscripts, and argue at length about ingredient substitutions. The food is the point rather than the backdrop, and it is usually far closer to the sources than anything commercial.

The practical consequence is that your best route is often not a restaurant at all. Look for reenactment societies, living history museums with working kitchens, and open days at castles and abbeys where the kitchen is part of the exhibit rather than the gift shop.