Damn. My French is pretty solid, and used to be good enough to do well in masters-level French literature classes at a French university in France, back when I was studying that kind of thing on a full-time basis. (I’m a native speaker of American English.)<p>I’d have incorrectly spelled it with the N when speaking English. When speaking French, the word restaurateur, in my experience, has generally referred to someone who restores things like artworks or buildings. When referring to someone who owns a restaurant, we’d have *always* said propriétaire.