NYC’s Newest Restaurant Likened To A Favorite Childhood Book ‘On LSD’
Ella Quittner had a funny take: “An almost laughable number of plates hung from chains overhead, like a bondage den had crossed with a Pottery Barn, and there were amphibians everywhere. There was a giant one hanging among the plates, there was a portrait of one in FDNY dress that a server said was an homage to a former regular who had passed away... See more
Emily • One Night in Frog Club
Diners, as a rule, are time machines; whether through the formica sheen of the nineteen-forties, the chromium optimism of the fifties, or the pastel geometries of the eighties, a diner traffics in nostalgia for past decades and past selves. The only era a diner should never reference is now.
Helen Rosner • The Best Diners Are Still Just Diners | The New Yorker
Every restaurant is a portal — a way to remember who you were and how things felt when you were, say, 19, or 27, or 35, but also to remember the particulars of a city, a neighborhood, a block.