Seymour Britchky
July 1, 2025 4:20 PM   Subscribe

"You will note, upon inspection of the menus, that the lobsters served here are identified either as medium or large. When you receive your 'medium' lobster, you will understand at once why nothing could be found to fit the bill of 'small'. This lobster must have been caught with a mosquito net, for he could have slipped the bars of any trap. But when you put on your reading glasses and commence to eat, your dismay is instantly magnified, for what you are not getting enough of is a perfectly broiled lobster, the meat so rich it seems buttery, its flavor vivid enough to make you heady."
For two all-too-brief decades, self-appointed restaurant critic Seymour Britchky made it his mission to capture it all in shockingly astute, hilarious, quotable prose before disappearing in his own right to become one of the city's best-fed (and, essentially, forgotten) ghosts. … Britchky's people are in it for his acid tongue and gimlet eye—the way he etched a menu, a moment, a space, a feeling, an era in dining when not every plate was Instagram-ready, every interaction Yelp-able to the world. For him, every meal was personal, every review a master class in the art of food writing.
(previously)
posted by Lemkin (2 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
My paperback copy of The Restaurants of New York (1985 edition), stolen from my stepmother almost 40 years ago, is one of my most treasured volumes. It is the source of the quote in the FPP, which was written about the very-long-gone Gloucester House.
posted by Lemkin at 4:23 PM on July 1 [2 favorites]


I can't read about lobsters without remembering this visceral review of the Lobster Cave in Melbourne, more famous for political intrigue than lobster, and now itself cooked..
posted by nickzoic at 4:56 PM on July 1 [2 favorites]


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