When I first started out as a journalist in the seventies, a rite of passage in New York was to be invited to eat at Palm, the storied steakhouse on Second Avenue and 45th Street that began as a modest Italian restaurant during Prohibition and evolved into a power lunch and dinner spot, not least for all the writers and reporters, sports figures, industry titans and show biz stars whose caricatures lined every inch of every wall.
    So I felt I’d fallen in with a very prestigious group when the late Clay Felker, then editor-in-chief of New York magazine, for which I was writing, invited me to join him along with other editors and staff to have lunch at Palm.  I fell in love with the place from the moment we entered: the bustle of a crowd of mostly men—pretty women were always an asset, however—the sawdust floors and walls whose older caricatures were darkened with cigarette smoke, the waiters in their tan jackets and black ties tossing down menus like playing cards and the way everyone seemed to know each other.
    A good dose of history is in order here: Back in 1926, during Prohibition, two immigrants from Parma, Italy, named Pio Bozzi and Giovanni “John” Ganzi opened a small Italian restaurant on NYC’s East Side. If customers asked for something to eat, Ganzi ran to a butcher shop to buy steaks and then cook them. 
    Bozzi and Ganzi sought to register their place as a restaurant named after their hometown of Parma, but a city clerk, who could not understand their accent, issued the license under the name “Palm.” The owners figured, why bother to order another sign, so it stayed there.   To this day, regulars call it “Palm,” as it is on the window and doggie bags, not “The Palm,” despite Bozzi and Ganzi letting "The" onto their menus (above) and, today, their website.
    Palm soon began serving a full menu of simple Italian dishes and steaks, personally selected from prime carcasses in the Meatpacking District, and adding items like a tomato and onion salad, cottage fried potatoes, lobsters, and for dessert, cheesecake. It was a menu not dissimilar to that served at other steakhouses in the immediate vicinity—called “Steakhouse Row”—like Christ Cella, Colombo’s, and Bruno’s Pen & Pencil (all now closed), but Palm became the best known, not least for the murals of cartoon caricatures of regular customers, a tradition begun when local artists paid for their meals by drawing the cartoons.  Later, some of NYC’s finest cartoonists added their work to the walls.
    After Bozzi and Ganzi’s deaths, great grandson Bruce Bozzi Sr. and son Walter Ganzi, Jr., took over the operation. Until the 1970s there was only the original Palm restaurant on Second Avenue at East 45th Street and an adjunct across the street called Palm Too.
        In the 1980s, however, the company began franchising, currently with 32 units in the U.S. and abroad, even in JFK Airport.  Sorry to report that when I’ve dined at any of “the” Palm restaurants—even the one on Manhattan’s West Side—I’ve never had the kind of USDA, dry-aged Prime beef I’ve had at the original. There’s just not enough of that to go around.
        The sad part of the story is that the original Palm, on the west side of Second Avenue, was forced to close after selling the building for $6 million to a developer who had no use for the restaurant, meaning that those famous murals had to be destroyed, too.
        Happily, Palm Too survives, and it looks very much like the original and has the same cast of light, via table lamps, though the sawdust is gone.  Palm Too has its own decades of cartoon caricatures, with a few of those from the original now put in frames. 
        The old sit-‘em-and-serve-‘em attitude has been softened and you’ll be well greeted, asked if you want a table or booth, if available. The noise level is not a problem as in so many other steakhouses with blasting Sinatra music.
        The menu is shorter than it used to be, when it listed items with names like Steak à la Stone and Chicken Bruno, along with a couple of pasta dishes.  Believe it or not, prices are a touch lower than at other steakhouses around: the 18-ounce New York strip is $57 (14 ounces for $51),  while you’ll pay $54 at Quality Meats, $62 at Hunt & Fish Club, $63 at Bobby Van’s and $65 at NYY.
        Cocktails are well made and generous, the bread basket and butter ramekin are too. I find it hilarious that the menu lists the calories count of each dish.
        Palm Too proudly promises and delivers on an abundance of not just jumbo but colossal lump crabmeat (right) in its crab cocktail ($26), and I don’t know how they get such good tomatoes year-round, but for now, with thickly sliced raw onion and a vinaigrette, the platter of them (left) is nonpareil in town ($14.50).  There’s also a lobster bisque ($15.50) and the now-requisite slab of bacon ($16).
        Now, let me state that the rich, minerally taste of the beef at Palm  I recall at the original is indelibly in my memory, and, as I mentioned, I don’t expect to find that quality at the other Palm restaurants. So I ordered a strip steak (14 oz, $51; 18 oz. $57), cooked impeccably medium-rare, and while I can’t say it gave me shivers of joy, it was a damn fine steak.  So was a bone-in ribeye ($59), ordered rare. And the Colorado lamb chops ($53)—four hefty ones, with just enough exterior fat left on—were superb.
        You’ve got to order side dishes at Palm Too—the decadently rich creamed spinach scented with nutmeg, portioned out to serve the table; the hand-cut golden brown French fries; and, the absolute must: a “half and half” platter of the sweetest shredded onion rings and brittle crisp cottage fries I dare you to stop eating.  (All sides are served family-style for two or more $14; individual portion $10.50.)
        You really don’t need dessert after a meal like this, but the S&S cheesecake is as good as ever (though order it without the gooey strawberries on top). They list “Crafted Gourmet Desserts from Sweet Streets,” like iced carrot cake and chocolate peanut butter pie, but I’ve never tried them.
        Palm Too’s wine list, which was once depressingly basic, is now quite substantial, if not as encyclopedic as Sparks’ or Smith & Wollensky’s. There are plenty of wines by the glass, though most are pretty standard labels. Don’t bother looking for bargain bottles.
        Going back to Palm Too was not quite so wonderful as going to the original restaurant, but it’s close enough and most certainly good enough to make it one of my top two or three steakhouses in New York. Just being there, in an atmosphere it would be foolish to reproduce anywhere else, including branches of “the” Palm, takes me back to those days when I could believe I’d passed a test, grown in stature and tasted some of the best food in the world, on my editor’s dime.

         Autumn weather is struggling in and one looks forward to cooler temperatures, but good, fresh cool white wines are always worth putting on the table.  Here is a number of whites that all have different flavor profiles.

LAGAR D CERVERA ALBARIÑO 2016 ($18)—Made from 100% Albariño in Rias Baixas in Galicia, this has a real citrusy tang that is refreshing at the very first sip and enhances whatever lighter foods you are eating, like the tortellini in chicken broth I enjoyed it with over lunch. The estate is now owned by the illustrious La Rioja Alta since 1988, which means great care was taken to keep this wine as lively as possible. The 2017 vintage is also now available.

FETZER SUNDIAL CHARDONNAY 2016 ($7.50)—This is a very appealing California-style Chardonnay at a remarkable price. It’s not subtle, but at 13.5% alcohol it’s not massive or overripe either, and winemaker John Kane aims for levels of flavor. Different toast levels in the oak barrels were used to produce the buttery flavors many people will enjoy with dishes like chicken, black bass and trout.

MICHAEL MONDAVI EMBLEM CHARDONNAY 2016 ($35)—Similar to the Fetzer Sundial Chardonnay, this Sonoma County production is for those who like fleshy whites with a little sweetness but in balance with the apple-citrus flavors. The website reads that “The 2016 Emblem Chardonnay marks our premier voyage into the Petaluma Gap, a subappellation of the Sonoma Coast AVA [whose] unique aspect . . . is that it consistently experiences much greater wind speeds than its neighboring regions in southern/western Sonoma County.”  It was a vintage in Sonoma with smaller berries, meaning sugars were condensed, so they were picked early and went through partial malolactc. The wine spent 10 months in both new oak and neutral oak barrels, and emerged at a high 14.5% alcohol.  There is, therefore, some complexity here that makes it ideal for dishes that have some chile heat to them. Not a Chardonnay for everyone

CANTINA TRAMIN KELLEREI MORITZ PINOT BIANCO ($14)—This northern Italian Pinot Bianco from the Sudtirol-Alto-Adige region has a lot more going on in the bottle than the varietal gets from southern climes. It was vinified in stainless steel, without malolactic fermentation, so the nice nutty flavor comes from the grapes themselves, not the barrel. Fine acids and good fruit make it a match for any kind of seafood, risotto with vegetables or rabbit cooked over the grill.  It gets its body from 13.9% alcohol. Also a good option with a terrine of foie gras.

FÓRRA MANZONE ALOIS LAGEDER BIANCO ($30)—Alois Lageder is one of the very best winemakers in Europe, founded in 1823 and still in the family, with biodynamic grapes from their own well-tended Dolomites vineyards as well as long contracted cooperatives. Though located in northern Italy, they speak German at the estate and the back label is in that language. The “IGT” means it is a wine made according to the Lageder blend, not in accordance with the DOC regulations, and you won’t find the grapes listed. "Fórra" means narrow valley" refers to a canyon in Adige. Made from a cross between Riesling and Pinot Bianco, the Manzoni Bianco grape was created in 1937 and is not widely planted. It has a good deal of weight at only 13% alcohol and a delectable aroma.