In 1919 the Hotel Pennsylvania, in New York, opened its first restaurant, with offerings notable for their descriptive simplicity: “lamb,” “potatoes: boiled,” and so on. Nearly 100 years later, the ...

The bistro was dark and noisy on the cold Boston night when my kids and I slid into the dark wood booth to have dinner. Around us, office workers, maybe some of the same ones we’d spied in a nearby ...