restaurants in literature

Celebrated dining rooms, cafés, and other spots for eating and drinking—some still serving, some long vanished—that function in literature as stages for appetite, status, seduction, conspiracy, gambling, political theater, art, social performance, or other ends.

By hello

37 posts

• P.J. Clarke's — In Truman Capote's short story A Beautiful Child*, the bar is referenced in Capote's account of an afternoon he spent with Marilyn Monroe i…
• Mouquin's — In Monsieur Mouquin’s cellar people are rather Bohemian, not to say friendly; for it is the rendezvous of artists, literary men and journal…
• Rector's — On this particular evening he dined at ‘Rector’s,’ a restaurant of some local fame, which occupied a basement at Clark and Monroe Streets.…
• Sherry's — I am to dine with him at Sherry’s. The Four Hundred, Edith Wharton By the late 1890s Sherry's had moved to the corner of 44th Street and Fi…
• Le Select — Anyhow, we were sitting on the terrace of the Café Select… Le Select, founded in 1923, was one of Montparnasse’s best-known interwar litera…
• Café de la Rotonde — The taxi stopped in front of the Rotonde. No matter what café in Montparnasse you ask a taxi-driver to bring you to … they always take you…
• Fouquet's — Passage cue: In Ian Fleming's short story "From a View to a Kill," Bond sits at an outdoor table at Fouquet's in Paris, orders an Americano…
• Smith & Wollensky — Passage cue: In American Psycho, Patrick Bateman and his circle dine at Smith & Wollensky, where one companion snaps, "You don't come to Sm…
• Elaine's — Passage cue: Stuart Woods made Elaine's a recurring stage in the Stone Barrington novels, often beginning with the clipped setup "Elaine's.…
• Musso & Frank Grill — Passage cue: Musso & Frank says Raymond Chandler wrote several chapters of The Big Sleep in its Back Room, and the restaurant states that C…
• Polidor — Passage cue: Hemingway remembered dinners at Polidor with Hadley Richardson and writer-friends in A Moveable Feast; the restaurant is expli…
• The Odeon — Passage cue: In Bright Lights, Big City, late-night Manhattan repeatedly routes its narrator through The Odeon; the link became so fixed in…
• McSorley's Old Ale House — Texts: "i was sitting in mcsorley's" by e.e. cummings and McSorley's Wonderful Saloon by Joseph Mitchell. "snug and evil" Cummings turns Mc…
• Jammet Restaurant — Status: Closed. Text: Ulysses by James Joyce. "that highclass whore in Jammet's" Joyce also gives the restaurant as a place of "standing fi…
• Davy Byrne's pub — Text: Ulysses by James Joyce. "a gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of burgundy" Bloom also thinks of it as a "Nice quiet bar." That combinati…
• Harry's Bar — Text: Across the River and into the Trees by Ernest Hemingway. Harry's Bar is one of Hemingway's great late interiors. Colonel Cantwell ret…
• Le Dôme Café — Texts: Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, and She Came to Stay by Simone de Beauvoir. Le Dôme appears…
• Closerie des Lilas — Text: A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. "one of the best cafés in Paris" For Hemingway, the Closerie des Lilas is a working café rather…
• Brasserie Lipp — Texts: A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway and Islands in the Stream by Ernest Hemingway. "cold beer and warm potato salad" Hemingway choo…
• Les Deux Magots — Texts: A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway and Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Les Deux Magots functions in literature as instant Saint-Germai…