The New York First Company - Impeccable Gifts and Unique Wonders

Celebrity Force Field.
A collector’s item book by Faith Stewart-Gordon, former owner of New York’s most extraordinarily beautiful and famous restaurants -- the lunching, dining, drinking, supper meeting place for artists, dancers, musicians, publishers, actors, and refugees from the Soviet Revolution who came to eat pre-Revolutionary Russian cuisine. Recipes for RTR’s Borscht, Zakuska, Shashlik, and over 100 dishes from the Tea Room’s menu.

The Gods of Cuisine.
Here is a record of all the wondrous dishes with which Andre Soltner, chef-proprietor of Lutece and one of the gods of cuisine, dazzled his faithful customers for more than thirty years. Now that Lutece has closed, this remarkable cookbook is all the more valuable, for it enables you to bring Soltner into your kitchen, and to create with him masterpieces that, but for The Lutece Cookbook, would be only memories.

Adult Western.
Larry “Cat” Ellman’s New York City institution recaptured the charm and manly elegance of a plush San Francisco saloon or hotel at the turn of the century, and became one of the nation’s most successful restaurants. Naturally, beef was its specialty, and The Cattleman’s Steak Book’s 200 recipes capture the flavor of distinctively Western dining from “the adult Western restaurant.”

New York Goes Southwest.
After eleven years of feeding the Times Square crowds, the Manhattan Chili Company closed its doors in 2005, but not before leaving behind a truly remarkable Southwest American cookbook. Recipes devised by partner Michael McLaughlin, one of America's most trusted and admired book and magazine food writers, first widely known as co-author of The Silver Palate Cookbook.

A Village Institution.
The owner of this rare cookbook has an immense range of recipes from The Cookery restaurant, from simple steak, plain fried chicken, and scrambled eggs (the right way!) to Tahitian Tenderloin, Poulet Marengo, and Piperade. By Gloria and Barney Josephson, admired hosts of the once enormously-popular New York City destination for “exciting cookery on a budget.”

Haute Cuisine.
Gene Cavallero, Jr., the son of one of New York’s great restaurateurs, tells the story of the late great Colony restaurant, gathering place of socialites and notables, gourmets and potentates. It was the kind of place that helped build the New York legend. Exclusive recipes from the restaurant (including famous Duck with Orange) have been adapted for family concoction and delectation. (1972 First Edition).

Chinatown.
Sou Chan, owner of New York’s House of Chan, combined his long experience in catering to the tastes of American gourmets with his thorough knowledge of Chinese cookery to produce a cookbook with more than 100 recipes and 23 menus of dishes served in the legendary Asian restaurant, from Chop Suey to Almond Cookies.

Homage to American Cooking.
By the time Larry Forgione left the River Café to open the first, small An American Place on upper Lexington in 1983, cooking American had become a source of national pride. This culinary visionary was largely responsible for the rebirth of farmers' markets across America and the availability of such quality ingredients as free-range chicken and the field green salad. Although An American Place lives on in new incarnations, the nearly three hundred mouthwatering recipes in this master cookbook are a tribute to the original.

The New Yorkiest Place.
From the Roaring Twenties to the chaotic Sixties, Sherman Billingsley's Stork Club was New York's most enchanting nightclub, and it inspired a cocktail book to end all cocktail books. The Stork Club Bar Book is a truly unique collection of bar recipes all bound together by a witty and engaging commentary by Lucius Beebe. The author originated the phrase "saloon society," and was first introduced to the Stork Club back in 1930, in the brave old 58th Street days. (First re-printing since 1946).

Good Food. No Nonsense.
New York City's famed Longchamps restaurants built a forty-five year reputation on gracious dining. In 1964, distinguished restaurateur Jan Mitchell and chef Ernest Imhof collaborated on a cookbook that includes recipes for dishes most requested by Longchamps' patrons, liberally spiced with wonderful restaurant stories. Introduced by Cleveland Amory, editor of The Saturday Evening Post and commentator for the "Today" television show.

Italian Country Cooking.
Campagna, on East 21st Street, was popular with record-industry types, serving Italian country-style food in a casual, stylishly rustic dining room. Mark Strausman's pastas were legendary, and in his limited-edition cookbook, the chef teaches the reader how to prepare them at home, including the restaurant's signature dish, Penne A.O.P. -- named for the three key ingredients, aglio (garlic), olio (oil), and pomodoro (tomato).

Respectable Recipes.
Recipes interspersed with one-liners and anecdotes featured at legendary New York restaurant and night club, Dangerfield's, where comedian Rodney Dangerfield dished out the jokes along with Farmer Rodney's Cucumber Salad, Racy Rice Pudding, Mock Chopped Liver Lyonnaise, Mashed Potato Hamburger Casserole, and Tutti Frutti Noodle Pudding.

Pleasures of Italian Cooking.
Born in Italy, Romeo Salta arrived in New York in 1929 for a job as an assistant waiter. By 1953 he was presiding at lunch and dinner at his own New York City restaurant, justly called "one of the three or four best Italian restaurants in the world (including Italy)." This nearly forgotten cookbook is a guide to over 300 recipes by the legendary restaurateur, truly a blueprint to the art of creating, preparing, and serving an incomparable Italian cuisine.

Buon Appetito.
This is a sophisticated, impertinent and witty combination of worldly-wise autobiography and connoisseurs' recipes, a well-spiced account of the owner of one of New York's most famous restaurants, El Borracho. Niccolo de Quattrociocchi, presents the inside story of his amusing career, along with recipes, not only his own and those from El Borracho, but include many from such famous restaurants as the Colony, El Morocco, the Pump Room of the Hotel Ambassador in Chicago, the Vieux Carre in New Orleans, the Restaurant La Rue in Los Angeles and other internationally known places like the Restaurant Frascati of London and La Tour d'Argent of Paris. A rare 1950 First Edition.

The Lobster That Ate New York.
This rare 1958 First Edition cookbook bears the stamp of authority of Mike Linz and Stan Fuchs, co-proprietors of The Lobster, old New York's most famous seafood restaurant. More tha 400 recipes are given, embracing fish and shellfish in virtually ever known culinary treatment, with much of the salty flavor and rich tradition of this storied old Times Square fishhouse, where three generations of Broadway's great have been wined and dined by the same family of hosts since 1919.

Dinner at Eight.
A fashionable Park Avenue address implies a grace and elegance born of cosmopolitan sophistication and urbane taste. This lavish cookbook, published in 1981, contains over 300 recipes that capture the special epicurean pleasures that are the essence of the Park Avenue style of living, including dishes from La Caravelle, La Grenouille, La Folie, and La Cote Basque. Previously-owned First Edition.

Chinese Food Comes to America.
Born in New York City's Chinatown in 1934, Calvin Lee inherited the family's Chinese restaurant, the oldest in the city. He managed the restaurant while completing both a bachelor's and a law degree at Columbia University. He published this cookbook in 1958, a few months after passing his bar examinations and joining a New York law firm, specializing in international law. He later earned a Ph.D. from New York University and became a professor of government then an assistant dean at Columbia before becoming Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Boston College. His delightful book will acquaint readers with how the Chinese have cooked for generations, and how this is adapted to the American home kitchen.

Tales and Recipes from La Colombe d'Or.
A volume that is as charming as the restaurant itself, and supplemented by more than 60 of La Colombe d'Or's most celebrated Provencal-style recipes originated at the restaurant. Helen Studley, co-owner of the legendary establishment, takes the reader on a wonderful and delicious journey and tells of the heartaches and rewards of running a restaurant in Manhattan with the honest style of a candid confidante. "The dream of someday owning a restaurant is not unlike a sexual fantasy: most people don't really want it to come true," writes Studley. Previously-owned First Edition.

I Remember Mama.
Celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito is best known for his short-lived reality TV show "The Restaurant," which chronicled the start-up (and disintegration) of DiSpirito's Manhattan dining spot, Rocco's 22nd Street, whose menu was partially devised by his mother Nicolina. Rocco's Italian American Cookbook offers 150-plus restaurant-connected dishes like Nicolina's much praised meatballs plus her Eggplant Rollatini and Pizza Fritta, among others. Worthy versions of old favorites include Spaghetti Carbonara, Linguini with Clams, and Stuffed Artichokes. Requiring fewer than ten ingredients, the recipes are as tempting as they are approachable. First Edition.

Touch of Tuscany in Greenwich Village.
Alfredo Viazzi had for years a trio of successful restaurants in Greenwich Village, the best of which was Trattoria da Alfredo, where he served Tuscan food. In the early 70s, when to most New Yorkers Italian cooking still meant eggplant parmigiana and spaghetti with red clam sauce, his food was a revelation. In this 1979 First Edition, he offers a collection of over 150 of his treasured recipes.

Pass the Popovers.
Patricia Murphy was one of the nation’s top restaurateurs, a celebrated horticulturist, a dedicated philanthropist, the hostess of her Candlelight Restaurant in Westchester, and a legend in her time. In the nearly-forgotten Glow of Candlelight, she tells the amazing story of her success and shares her most treasured recipes and menus. Among taste sensations are Chicken Victor with Dumplings, Duckling Flambe, and popovers – so important to her that she wore a gold popover charm on her charm bracelet. Previously-owned 1961 First Edition.

Italian Cookbook as Memoir.
He owned and supervised three restaurants in New York’s Greenwich Village – Trattoria da Alfredo, Tavola Calda da Alfredo, and Café Domel. This unique cookbook combines essays as charming as M.F.K. Fisher’s and the hand of a master chef who shares the great Italian cooking that made his life a rich and joyous experience. Also includes chapters on sauces, stocks and salad dressings; pasta making; the marketplace; wine lists; and a list of Alfredo’s own favorite eating places in Europe, Morocco, New York and California.

The Premier French Restaurant in New York.
The story of one of the finest restaurants in the Western Hemisphere, Le Pavillon and it's proprietor, Henri Soule, in a book as exciting and memorable as an actual dinner at Le Pavillion. The restaurant started as the Le Restaurant du Pavillon de France at the 1939 New York World's Fair run by Henri Soulé. When World War II began, Soulé and the Pavillon chef Pierre Franey stayed in the United States as war refugees. Le Pavillon defined French food in the United States from 1941 to 1966. This rare book includes observations on the art of graceful living and a few selected never before published recipes. Offering the 1962 First Edition.

Cuisine Versus Cooking
A distinguished gentleman with silvery-gray hair and a large Gallic nose, Rene Black was associated with New York's Waldorf Astoria, then with the Fountainebleau in Miami Beach. An authority on gastronomy and elegance, and a maitre de bouche, often described as "The Master of 40 Sauces," Mr. Black gathered his recipes into one remarkable cookbook, a gourmet's feast of appetizing, easy-to-prepare dishes, rich in the lore of cooking. Offered is a rare 1955 First Edition.