It gained a reputation as one of the nation's top fine dining establishments.  

The original Delmonico's opened in 1827 in a rented pastry shop at 23 William Street 

Credited with being one of the first American restaurants to allow patrons to order from a menu à la carte, as opposed to table d'hôte. 

The birthplace of the widely imitated Delmonico steak 

The first to employ a separate wine list 

1923 - Delmonico's final location, Fifth avenue and 44th street 

1923 - Delmonico's, N.E. Cor. 44th St. & 5th Ave. - Margaret Murtha - Church of the Heavenly Rest - No. 555 Lewandos, cleaners, Dyers, 1911 

1923 - Annual Banquet of the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York, Delmonico's, Feb. 22, 1906 

1923 - Dinner in honor of Admiral Campion at Delmonico's in 1906 

1923 - Pièces montées for a banquet being prepared in the Delmonico's kitchen in 1902 

1926 - Delmonico's, Beaver and South William Streets, 1893 

1905 - Mark Twain's 70th Birthday Dinner  Hosted by George Harvey, Harpers Editor; the Magazine publishes a 32 page Christmas supplement covering the banquet. When Mark Twain’s friend and publisher George Harvey threw the master of American letters a 70th birthday party in 1905, he didn’t skimp as host. Choosing to hold the party at Delmonico’s in New York. Harvey invited 170 guests, had a 40-piece orchestra perform, gave each attendee a foot-tall, plaster of paris bust of Twain, and printed a special menu with illustrations by Leon Barritt showing the writer’s varied occupations throughout his life, from riverboat pilot to editor. The menu also provides a glimpse of fine dining at the end of the Gilded Age. There are the staples that endure to this day—Champagne, oysters, and ice cream, for instance—among the era-defining ingredients and preparations that are mostly lost to history. Though Charles Ranhofer was no longer chef at Delmonico’s when the party occurred, the man who had an outsize role in shaping American dining in the late 19th century—having invented such classics as Baked Alaska and Lobster Newburg—still had his fingerprints on the Twain party menu. It was fitting that one legend should be feted while dining on the food of another. Many of the dishes featured—from timbales périgordine (a French dish where ingredients, including chestnut puree, truffles, and minced chicken, are cooked inside a cylindrical mold) to celery mayonnaise (it’s exactly what it sounds like)—can be found in Ranhofer’s epic 1894 culinary tome Epicurean. One menu item in particular stands out as a delicacy of a bygone era: turtle. At the turn of the century, turtle was very popular, coveted by those who could afford it, until overfishing and mock versions drove it out of fashion in the States. Ranhofer’s cookbook featured 13 recipes for turtle and terrapin alone. At Twain’s party, guests dined on Baltimore terrapin, for which chopped turtle is fried in butter with salt, pepper, and cayenne, then braised in stock, tossed with cornstarch to thicken, and finished with sherry—a dish that might have limited appeal to contemporary palates. However, it wasn’t the cuisine that made Twain’s celebration sufficiently notable to compel coverage in the New York Times and Harper’s Weekly, the latter of which published a supplementary issue chronicling the speeches of those in attendance. Instead, it was the company: Food, like fashion, can be fleeting, but the friends and family gathered at any party make the memories endure.

1859 - The 1st Restaurant Review in the New York Times  The first restaurant review to appear in the Times, with a byline “by the Strong-Minded Reporter of the Times” “Very well,” replied the editor-in-chief. “Dine somewhere else to-day and somewhere else to-morrow. I wish you to dine everywhere, — from the Astor House Restaurant to the smallest description of dining saloon in the City, in order that you may furnish an account of all these places. The cashier will pay your expenses.” His list of the types of American dinner to be found in New York, from most comfortable to least: 1. The Family dinner at home. 2. The Stetsonian dinner. 3. The Delmonican, or French dinner. 4. The Minor dinner of the Stetsonian principle. 5. The Eating-house dinner, so called. 6. The Second-class Eating-house dinner. 7. The Third-class Eating-house feed. Once let Delmonico have your order, and you are safe. You may repose in peace up to the very moment when you sit down with your guests. No nobleman of England — no Marquis of the ancienne nobless — was ever better served or waited on in greater style that you will be in a private room at Delmonico’s. The lights will be brilliant, the waiters will be curled and perfumed and gloved, the dishes will be strictly en règle and the wines will come with precision of clock-work that has been duly wound up. If you “pay your money like a gentleman,” you will be fed like a gentleman, and no mistake… The cookery, however, will be superb, and the attendance will be good. If you make the ordinary mistakes of a untraveled man, and call for dishes in unusual progression, the waiter will perhaps sneer almost imperceptibly, but he will go no further, if you don’t try his feelings too harshly, or put your knife into your mouth.