Elaine's

Elaine's was far more than a restaurant; it functioned as a private, nightly salon for the city's literary elite and cultural icons. Founded in nineteen sixty-three by Elaine Kaufman, the establishment was famously unconcerned with its basic Italian-American menu or its modest decor. Patrons returned for the proprietress herself, a blunt, chain-smoking force of nature who acted as a den mother to struggling writers while simultaneously holding court with international celebrities. It became a sanctuary where novelists, journalists, and filmmakers could escape the pressures of their craft and engage in the kind of intellectual exchange that defined a specific era of New York City history.