New York In A Dozen Dishes

In thirteen essays (a baker's dozen) covering distinctive dishes from a cross-section of New York City's cultural makeup, veteran food journalist Robert Sietsema explores how foods from around the world arrived, commingled, and became part of the city's culinary identity. Sietsema writes from personal experience as a restaurant critic eating in thousands of restaurants across five boroughs (and New Jersey) over the span of multiple decades; each chapter ends with a recipe.

Featuring a new chapter on ten restaurants changing America today, a “fascinating . . . sweep through centuries of food culture” (Washington Post). Combining an historian’s rigor with a food enthusiast’s palate, Paul Freedman’s seminal and highly entertaining Ten Restaurants That Changed America reveals how the history of our restaurants reflects nothing less than the history of America itself. Whether charting the rise of our love affair with Chinese food through San Francisco’s fabled Mandarin; evoking the poignant nostalgia of Howard Johnson’s, the beloved roadside chain that foreshadowed the pandemic of McDonald’s; or chronicling the convivial lunchtime crowd at Schrafft’s, the first dining establishment to cater to women’s tastes, Freedman uses each restaurant to reveal a wider story of race and class, immigration and assimilation. “As much about the contradictions and contrasts in this country as it is about its places to eat” (The New Yorker), Ten Restaurants That Changed America is a “must-read” (Eater) that proves “essential for anyone who cares about where they go to dinner” (Wall Street Journal Magazine).

The Washington Post food critic’s guide to the nation’s top ten culinary capitals—plus restaurant recipes you can make in your own kitchen. Follow Tom Sietsema as he dines, drinks and browses at 271 restaurants, bars, and shops while reporting for his America’s Best Food Cities project. Along the way, he measures how each city stacks up in terms of creativity, community, tradition, ingredients, shopping, variety, and service. Sietsema offers a guidebook to his top recommendations, garnished with short descriptions of the eateries he visited, the best things he ordered in each city, and even some signature recipes from notable restaurants along his path, so that you too can make the best dishes without buying a plane ticket. Along the way he dishes out surprises and tips to satisfy the palate of every culinary adventurer. This is the ultimate guide to eating well in America’s top 10 food cities, whether you’re a resident of one of them or planning a visit. Bon appetit!