A Few Favorite Restaurants

What a surprise to open this 1958 issue of Gourmet and find ads for all my parents' favorite restaurants!  My father's office was right above The Dubonnet, and my parents ate there a few times a week.  Now I see why: a 7-course dinner was $3, and given my mother's cooking it was probably the safest, most economical option. (Besides, Mom would never have eaten seven courses, so she probably reduced her cost to about a buck.) How lucky for me: our favorite waiter, Max, used to take me into the kitchen and introduce me to exotic spices. I remember mostly French food, but now I see that it was French-Hungarian and its appeal to my German father becomes clearer.

We ate at the late, lamented Luchow's at least once a week.  My father usually had Kassler Ripchen with a side order of chanterelles. Mom always ordered the apple pancake (the size of a large pizza, it was flambeed at the table).  I think I ordered something different every time I went; the menu was huge and there was so much to explore.

Charming. Old. And the place where my parents were married. (After a hitch; when the management discovered that the minister marrying them was African-American, they tried to wriggle out of the contract. My indomitable grandmother wouldn't have it.) Sadly, after an eighty year run the restaurant closed last month.

Another Mom favorite. Also charming and old. (This too had a long run; it just closed last year.)