BostonOpened: 1832
Now part of the Omni Parker House Hotel,
Parker’s Restaurant is a surviving 19th century eatery that helped define our conception of
old-school fine dining, with white tablecloths, crystal chandeliers, button-down waiters, and lobster bibs. It’s also credited with inventing what later became Massachusetts’s official state dessert, the Boston cream pie, as well as the term “scrod” for whitefish and the crisp-on-the-outside-fluffy-on-the-inside Parker House rolls most Americans know today. It also had a storied roster of celebrity patrons and employees, spanning from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Ho Chi Minh to Malcolm X and Emeril Lagasse.
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