A table d'hôte joint on 24th Street along with a menu from another "New York City club," 1893
Table d'hôte is a French phrase meaning "host's table," and starting back in the late 1800s certain New Yorkers would dine this way. Here's what it meant: multi-course meals (with few choices) at a fixed price. Recently the NYPL's old menu project pointed us to this look-back at the time this type of dining was in fashion with the Bohemian set in New York City.
Before World War I artists in NYC were attracted to cheap, unpretentious little ethnic restaurants in the basements of brownstones that dotted unfashionable side streets... They harked back to the early days of European restaurants when paying guests sat down with the host family at their dining table. With the meal, which typically consisted of spaghetti, salad, and a small portion of meat or fish, came a complimentary carafe of red wine, not always of the best vintage.
In 1906 the NY Sun reported on the rise and fall of table d'hôte, focusing on the Black Cat on West Broadway between 3rd and Bleecker, which eventually closed after not being profitable. There was also Mama Bertolotti’s on 3rd Street, where the "long-haired men and the short-haired girls" would go for the 15 cent lunch, "which comprised of three items: thick minestrone soup with copious bread and butter, a glass of red wine; a nickel tip for the dirty-aproned waiter."
Traditionaly table-d'hote service sat everyone at one single large table, though restaurants began using small tables as well. So how long before these meals in their more traditional form start up again in brownstone Brooklyn basement apartments?
