Ten restaurants that changed America / Paul Freedman ; introduction by Danny Meyer.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

List of illustrations -- Introduction / Danny Meyer -- Ten restaurants and American cuisine -- Delmonico's : America's first restaurant -- Antoine's : haute Creole -- Schrafft's : seeking out the female customer -- Howard Johnson's : as American as fried clams -- Mamma Leone's : Italian entertainment -- The Mandarin : "the best Chinese food east of the Pacific" -- Sylvia's : the soul of Harlem -- Le Pavillon : midcentury French -- Four Seasons : the epitome of modern -- Chez Panisse : "the way we eat now" -- Epilogue: 1980 to the present.

"From Delmonico’s to Sylvia’s to Chez Panisse, a daring and original history of dining out in America as told through ten legendary restaurants. Combining a historian’s rigor with a foodie ’s palate, 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 The Mandarin, evoking the richness of Italian food through Mamma Leone’s, or chronicling the rise and fall of French haute cuisine through Henri Soulé’s Le Pavillon, food historian Paul Freedman uses each restaurant to tell a wider story of race and class, immigration and assimilation. Freedman also treats us to a scintillating history of the then-revolutionary Schrafft’s, a chain of convivial lunch spots that catered to women, and that bygone favorite, Howard Johnson’s, which pioneered midcentury, on-the-road dining, only to be swept aside by McDonald's. Lavishly designed with more than 100 photographs and images, including original menus, Ten Restaurants That Changed America is a significant and highly entertaining social history." --Publisher's website.