Delmonico's Restaurant, ca. 1898.

Perhaps more than any other establishment, Delmonico's restaurant epitomized the Gilded Age. IT was the premiere public place for the elite to dine and hold lavish affairs, and it set trends in dining and entertaining that people across the country- and even the world- spired to. Upper and middle-class women read about the restaurant's linens, oysters spoons and flower arrangements for ideas on how to set their own tables. And silver purveyors like Reed and Barton clamored to sell the restaurant their place settings so customers would buy them.

The original owners, brothers Peter and John Delmonico, started out in 1827 with a shop at 23 William Street that served cakes, ices, and fine wines. By the 1830s, they had created the "restaurant" as we know it today. Before Delmonico's, men went to restaurants to eat, not dine. They visited sparse rooms where employees ran back and forth between the kitchen and the tables to serve from a handful of dishes that were written on a big board. By contrast, Delmonico's offered an elaborate printed menu of French and Italian dishes in an opulent setting with waiters who catered to patrons' every need. Like other restaurants and hotels in the 1880s, Delmonico's opened a midtown location- the one you're stopped at-to be closer to the city's nightlife and its patrons. Now diners could walk just a few blocks for a meal after an evening at the Metropolitan Opera.

In 1923, the combination of high rents and prohibition caused Delmonico's to close. Though the current Delmonico's downtown is under new management, you can still order two of the original's signature dishes- Egg's Benedict and Chicken a la Keene.