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• by:
• Grimes, William

A rollicking journey through the history of New York City’s restaurants New York is a world restaurant capital. But this was not always the case. Few examples still exist to recall the era when chophouses and oyster saloons dominated the city and dining out was supposed to be quick and simple. It is a world hardly recognizable today, when dinner can stretch for hours and cost hundreds of dollars. In Appetite City, William Grimes offers a grand tour of the history of the city’s restaurants, exploring the ways in which sex and class determined where and how a person would eat, and how the city’s restaurant scene mirrored the larger social and political forces shaping New York.

Through dozens of irresistible characters and anecdotes, and a treasure trove of photographs, Grimes evokes both the belle epoque of Edith Wharton and the surging multicultural city of today. Appetite City is a memorable history of New York through its restaurants.