ephemeralnewyork posted: " I'm not sure what's going on with the Hotel Wolcott these days. Prior to 2020, this pink brick and limestone landmark on 31st Street off Fifth Avenue catered to tourists looking for an inexpensive place to bed down in Manhattan. After Covid hit, the Wol"
I'm not sure what's going on with the Hotel Wolcott these days. Prior to 2020, this pink brick and limestone landmark on 31st Street off Fifth Avenue catered to tourists looking for an inexpensive place to bed down in Manhattan. After Covid hit, the Wolcott stopped accepting "transient hotel guests."
The Wolcott at 31st Street and Fifth Avenue, about 1910
In the Wolcott's Gilded Age heyday, however, the hotel's clientele were a lot higher on the social ladder. Opened in 1904 in the hopping theater and shopping district near Herald Square that was fast supplanting the rough and ready Tenderloin, this Beaux-Arts beauty hosted notables like Edith Wharton and Isadora Duncan.
The Wolcott menu front cover
The Wolcott operated on what was known as the "European plan," which meant that meals were not included in the room price. So when the hotel dining room put together this mind-blowing Christmas dinner menu for December 25, 1905, hotel guests had to pay extra.
What a feast it was! The menu featured more than a hundred options, starting with an array of oysters and clams and then 25 or so relishes (lots of caviar and "chow-chow"), soups (turtle, of course; it's an old New York favorite), and fish (codfish tongues?) before getting to the official entrees.
If beef, ham, or chicken isn't your idea of a Christmas dinner main course, the Wolcott offered plenty of game options, like grouse, woodcock, and partridge.
A chef in the Wolcott kitchen, 1917
The vegetable choices were quite extensive, and that list included different varieties of potatoes, including "French fried"—perhaps an early mention of the classic side we're so used to with a burger today.
The dessert course went old-school with plum pudding. But look at all those ice cream options! Fruit, cheese, and then coffee and tea rounded out the feast. I wonder what "Wolcott special milk" is?
The menu reveals some things about life among the upper classes in Gilded Age New York. Unlike today's pared-down, curated restaurant menu, variety seems to have been important. French dishes were certainly popular, likely thanks to the influence of Delmonico's, which by 1905 had moved up to 44th Street and was still a leading option in a city where dining out was becoming more of a regular thing.
How the hotel's dining staff managed to obtain and store all of these food choices is mind-boggling. Chefs must have been down at the city's great food markets, like Washington Market, early in the morning, and an army of cooks likely chopping, peeling, and cleaning all day.
One thing remains the same, though: Christmas dinner was meant to be a celebration, just as it is today.
[Top image: MCNY, x2011.34.303; Second image: NYPL
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