
East Harlem’s chopped cheese, and the two men who say they invented it
At Blue Sky Deli on First Avenue, the counter’s own staff can’t agree on the sandwich’s origin — which is part of why the story keeps traveling.
Food as city life: immigrant kitchens and what the second generation changes, greenmarkets and suppliers, delivery platforms and their effect on menus, dining rooms that outlive the neighborhoods around them, and the rituals New Yorkers build around a regular table. Reported with attention to the people cooking.
How the city eats.

At Blue Sky Deli on First Avenue, the counter’s own staff can’t agree on the sandwich’s origin — which is part of why the story keeps traveling.

New York dining has its own etiquette — set by real estate, clocks and crowds — and knowing it makes every table better.

A Polish-Jewish bread arrived with the immigrants, got unionized on the Lower East Side, and then mechanized its way to becoming the city's default breakfast.

From Dorothy Parker's round table to the dining car of every Woody Allen fantasy, Manhattan's restaurants have starred in the city's stories as long as it has had them.

Cantonese beginnings, Taishanese cookery, Fujianese arrivals and East Broadway's ivory trade of flavor — Chinatown's menus are a map of migration.

Baked for the whole pie, sold by the single piece, eaten folded on the street — the New York slice is an invention of the city's economics as much as its ovens.