SOURCE: "This Was New York. It Was," in The New York Times Book Review, Vol. XCVII, No. 33, August 16, 1992, p. 7.

In the following review of Up in the Old Hotel, Klinkenborg emphasizes the historical value of Mitchell's writings.

There were many great eaters at The New Yorker in the 1940's, but surely the magazine's greatest eaters of that decade were A. J. Liebling and Joseph Mitchell. Their tastes differed. Liebling loved French food, as it was served in France before and between the world wars. He could describe a meal as if it were a procession of wise old courtesans. Joseph Mitchell had—perhaps still has, for he is 82 years old and divides his time between New York and a home in North Carolina—simpler tastes in food. He inclines to the beefsteak, the oyster and the clam. To his dining he brings a melancholic tinge.

"One Sunday afternoon...