New York Magazine’s tenth “Yesteryear” issue, overseen by food editor Alan Sytsma and deputy editor Alexis Swerdloff, celebrates the history of New York City, as told entirely through its restaurants. Featuring dozens and dozens of era-defining spots — like the restaurant where Elaine Kaufman got her start, 1905’s party of the year at Delmonico’s, and the breakfast spots that nourished the city’s club kids, jazz saxophonists, and East Village punks — the issue is less a celebration of what we ate than it is of the people who define the most vibrant dining scene in America. “Landmarks may fade, but the feeling of ease that comes from finding your place — or, failing that, the place where the SNL cast likes to hang out — is timeless and universal,” principal restaurant critic Matthew Schneier writes in the introduction.
“When we looked back over the last 200 or so years of dining, we started to see all of these ideas and scenes that really first took hold inside the city’s dining rooms,” says Sytsma. “More than the food or the service or the décor, it was the diners that fascinated us.”
Contributors to the issue include Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jonathan Lethem, Najha Zigbi-Johnson, Ben Widdicombe, Chris Crowley, Amy Sacco, Waltpaper, Christopher Bonanos, Ben Kesslen, Julia Fox, Adam Platt, Rosie Perez, Shawn McCreesh, Fat Joe, Carl Swanson, Lizzy Goodman, Boris Kachka, Paula Aceves, Darryl McDaniels, Madeline Leung Coleman, Megan Paetzhold, Brian Keith Jackson, Lucy Boyle, Leigh McMullan Abramson, Julia Edelstein, Edgar Gomez, Ella Quittner, Nancy Jo Sales, Lane Brown, Matthew Schneier, Aaron Short, and Mickey Boardman.
The cover photographs capture the joy and life of New York City restaurants. The top image by Catherine McGann spotlights a club-kid dinner at Limelight in 1991, and the bottom image by Matthew Klein is of Mortimer’s in 1984.
Elsewhere in the issue, Olivia Nuzzi dives into Arizona politics and how the border state that’s ground zero for rigged-election conspiracy theories might decide the fate of the Senate — and the presidency. Additionally, former editor-in-chief of New York Adam Moss debuts his new book, The Work of Art: How Something Comes From Nothing (April 16, Penguin Press), tracing the evolution of transcendent sculptures, poems, textiles, and more, with an exclusive excerpt.