Eats & Treats >>

• Will Shakespeare's Last Meal
  Tea and Sympathy
  There's no doubt the Bard would find the quaint premises of Tea and Sympathy utterly familiar, with its ranked Toby jugs and pictures of the royals (though he'd wonder how Elizabeth could still be queen), and he'd find the food comforting, too: a Welsh rarebit heavy on the cheese, say, followed... More >>
• Amy Winehouse's Last meal
  Silver Spoon
  With her boozy delivery and reputation for being skronked during concerts and recording sessions, we're putting this songstress on the wagon for her last meal. We'll send her to the strictly Halal Pakistani restaurant Silver Spoon in Bath Beach, where booze is not allowed, and where the... More >>
• Vladimir Putin's Last Meal
  Café Glechik
  Maybe you thought Putin would demand a dish of poutine, the French-Canadian morass of french fries, curds, and gravy; but no, he'll be camped out at Café Glechik sampling the peasant fare his mother served him in his hometown of Leningrad. His final meal would begin with a steaming bowl... More >>
• Mata Hari's Last Meal
  Petite Abeille
  Margaretha Geertruida Zelle (her real name) would look in vain to find an actual Dutch restaurant in New York ever since NL on Sullivan Street closed down, but she'd find food to love at the Belgian chain Petite Abeille. The exotic dancer and spy would order stoempf, an herby swamp of root... More >>
• Yul Brynner's Last Meal
  Chao Thai
  In his movie career, the Russian-born Brynner played an Egyptian pharaoh, a Hebrew judge, and a Mexican rebel. But since he graced Broadway with 4,626 performances as the Siamese King Mongkut, let's get Yul a painfully hot Thai meal to punish him for impersonating somebody of another race. At... More >>
• Betsy Ross's Last Meal
  99 Miles to Philly
  Born Elizabeth Griscom in Philadelphia of Quaker parents, this upholsterer and seamstress met George Washington when she sewed a button on his pants—probably with him still in them. Subsequently, he and a couple of his pals asked her to stitch the national flag, for which she used hemp... More >>
• Arnold Schwarzenegger's Last Meal
  El Anzuelo Fino
  The muscle-bound Governator spent his early career body-building, culminating in a Mr. Universe title that was his ticket to America. Accordingly, we think he needs mussels for his final meal. He'll find them plentifully represented in the ceviche mixto at El Anzuelo Fino ("the delicate... More >>
• Methuselah's Last Meal
  Shake Shack
  This Old Testament figure is famous for living to the age of 969 (which sounds like code for some sort of weird group sex). This makes him the perfect person to enjoy the wonderful burger at Shake Shack, composed of brisket and rib meat, because he won't mind waiting in line almost forever. When... More >>
• Foxy Brown's Last Meal
  Brasserie Ruhlmann
  We don't want to detain the rapper too long, since she might be on her way to make an appearance for the three-year probation she got for throwing hair glue at a nail-salon employee in Florida. Now that she has transferred her musical allegiance to Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella records, we think it only... More >>
• Genghis Khan's Last Meal
  Arzu
  Biographers tell us this guy was kind of a sweetheart, but I prefer to think of him as a fierce warrior and someone you wouldn't want to rile up. Accordingly, I think we should feed him a Uyghur meal. The food will be entirely familiar to him, since the Uyghurs were among the peoples united in... More >>
• Marie Curie's Last Meal
  Krolewski Jadlo
  The Queen of Radiation and two-time Nobel Laureate had simple tastes, and though our waggish side would have preferred to serve her an Indian curry due to her last name, decency prevailed. Consistent with her maiden name of Skodowska, we've decided to send her to the fanciest Polish joint in... More >>
• Paris Hilton's Last Meal
  Paris Sandwich
  Poor Paris! Dogged by paparazzi, unable to keep her underpants on, thrown in jail—to counter these problems, we've selected one of the most obscure restaurants, where there are sure to be no photogs hanging around, and where no one will even notice if she exposes herself during her meal.... More >>
• John Gotti Jr.'s Last Meal
  Umberto's
  The mini-don doubtlessly loves seafood prepared in the Italian manner, and there's no better place in town for it than Umberto's on Arthur Avenue in Belmont, which I like better than the one in Manhattan's Little Italy. He can sit outside on a sunny afternoon and enjoy the lemony seafood salad... More >>
• John James Audubon's Last Meal
  Little Owl
  The son of a French sea captain and a Congolese slave, ornithologist and painter John James Audubon was no vegetarian—he had to shoot the birds that he painted, using fine buckshot so as not to blow them apart, then trussing them up with invisible wires. For his last meal, he'll seek out... More >>
• Don Imus's Last Meal
  DiFara Pizza
  While he's waiting to get his show back, the shock jock won't mind waiting for his last meal: We'll send him to DiFara Pizza, where he'll wait in line for a good long time (maybe an hour or more) doing penance for his racist remarks. His (final) reward will be a square Sicilian slice lushly... More >>
• Captain Cook's Last Meal
  Bajan Café
  Explorer and captain in the British Navy, James Cook discovered Hawaii and became the first European to set foot on the coast of Australia. But culinarily, he left a footprint of a different sort, bringing all sorts of botanicals back to the Caribbean. It was he who was responsible for... More >>
• Jimmy Dean's Last Meal
  Burmese Café
  We're not thinking about the beloved actor James Dean, but the singer and sausage maker Jimmy Dean, who flogged his "pure pork sausage" somewhat obscenely in the 1990s. We're going to treat him to a real rarity in these parts: pure pork curry. He'll sample it at Burmese Café, where three... More >>
• King Tut's Last Meal
  Suez
  As a potentate who ruled from his "crib" by the Nile River, the boy king Tut must have watched the reed boats slide into the muddy waters and cast their nets for fish. It will be a revelation for him to see how similar the modern Egyptian piscine provender is. One of several Jersey restaurants... More >>
• Icarus's Last Meal
  Smoke Joint
  Icarus had some nifty wings made by his dad Daedalus out of bird feathers held together with wire and wax. But before he flies too close to the sun and crashes in flames into the Icarian Sea, let's throw a feast for him and his dad at Smoke Joint, where the smoked buffalo wings will offer a... More >>
• George W. Bush's Last Meal
  Malatesta
  In name at least, Malatesta ("cracked in the head") is the only place we know demented enough for Bush's last meal. Since he'll hopefully be executed by the decree of a war-crimes tribunal sometime soon, it's appropriate that he enjoy a carbo-loading repast on the evening before his gassing. At... More >>
• Dick Cheney's Last Meal
  Little Pepper
  There can be no doubt that Bush's VP is an evil dude, so we've developed our own version of extraordinary rendition for him. First, we'll lure him into a black limo somewhere in midtown with naked pix of the prez and first lady, then whisk him to Flushing, Queens. There we'll force-feed him a... More >>
• Hillary Clinton's Last Meal
  Joe's Shanghai
  Though she's spent most of her adult life in Arkansas, D.C., and New York, Hil is a Chicago girl at heart, born and raised in the City of Big Shoulders, as Carl Sandburg called it. Consistent with this cognomen, we're treating her to the fabled pork shoulder with brown gravy and spinach at Joe's... More >>
• Michael Bloomberg's Last Meal
  Birdbath
  He didn't stop the Atlantic Yards, and he never made the city a better place to bicycle, but he certainly is ferreting out trans fats! Accordingly, the playboy mayor's last meal will be a very dry vegan scone from City Bakery's Birdbath, an eco-conscious bakery in the West Village that buys wind... More >>
• Cat Stevens's Last Meal
  The Fish & Chips Spot
  Born Steven Demetre Georgiou, but now known as Yosuf Islam, Cat was a pop hero in the late '60s, penning and singing such songs as "Wild World" and "Peace Train." When he converted to Islam and became a peace activist, the feds wouldn't let him into the country—probably because they hate... More >>
• Bruce Lee's Last Meal (1 Comment)
  Kool Bloo
  Martial-arts enthusiast and actor Bruce Lee (a/k/a Jun Fan) died way too young from a swollen brain. Others say it was from smoking hash and being allergic to it. Anyway, he made Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential figures of the 20th century, even though he died at 32. To honor... More >>
• Patti Smith's Last Meal
  Veselka
  Yes, she moved to Detroit to be with Fred "Sonic" Smith (no relation), but she belongs forever in the East Village. Accordingly, we'd ensconce the raven-haired singer and growler in East Village Ukrainian fave Veselka for a plate of fried mixed pierogi, a snatch of rubbery kielbasa, and maybe a... More >>
• Judi Nathan's Last Meal
  Avenue U Sausage and Peppers
  As our philandering former mayor Rudy Giuliani tours the country in support of his presidential bid, masquerading as a quasi-liberal, his third wife must be a little worried about his behavior on the road. Accordingly, we're going to treat Nathan (née Stish) to a hot-dog last supper at... More >>
• Barney's Last Meal
  Alfanoose
  Die, Barney, die! The affable, eggplant-shaped dinosaur has driven many parents to distraction with his lumbering eccentricities and ability to turn legions of children into wallpaper paste. Let's first entice him with a meal of—what else?—eggplant at Alfanoose, a downtown... More >>
• Colonel Sanders's Last Meal
  Mitchell's Soul Food
  Let's treat the horny old codger to a last meal of real fried chicken—not the crap he peddles in his innumerable franchises. I'm thinking about the perfect bird at Mitchell's Soul Food, which arrives moist and fleshy, the crisp skin unencumbered except by the merest dusting of flour. And... More >>
• George Bernard Shaw's Last Meal
  Meze
  As far as I can tell, all English vegetarians love cheese. So you won't be surprised that we've been casting around trying to find a final meal for the beloved Victorian playwright and socialist featuring excellent cheese. Our choice may prove controversial, but we're taking him to Meze, a Greek... More >>
• David Koresh's Last Meal
  Colbeh
  The first time I ate in a Persian restaurant, it struck me as odd that the generic term for stew was nearly the same as that of a gun-toting Christian cultist. Accordingly, this feature fulfills a dream of ours to see David Koresh eating a Persian koresht. And, as a tourist to New York, he'll be... More >>
• Bugs Bunny's Last Meal
  Concourse Bakery
  You wascally wabbit! Prior to your demise, you were very fond of carrots, we seem to recall, and would often be seen leaning against a tree and munching on one. It's only fair that we give you a piece of the city's best carrot cake, which can be found at Concourse Bakery, a splendid... More >>
• George Washington Carver and Jimmy Carter's Last Meal
  Mie Jakarta
  We're sure George Washington Carver, the peanut scientist, and Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer, will have lots to talk about when we throw them a joint last supper at Mie Jakarta. At this humble hawker stall turned storefront, they'll enjoy the house palm-sugar-laced peanut sauce on nearly... More >>
• Batman's Last Meal
  A Fan Ti
  When we see the Bat Signal streaming upward into the night sky, the first thing we exclaim is, "What the hell are we going to feed him after he returns from his latest heroic stunt?" We see the black cowl, black cape, and sneering curled lip and think: Here's a guy that must love variety meats.... More >>
• Buffalo Bill's Last Meal
  La Pentola Pizzeria
  Ha, ha—you thought I was going to give this 19th-century American showman a meal of buffalo wings, right? Well, I've got something substantially better: buffalo chicken pizza. We've seen it several places around town, a sign of the ineluctable march of pizza onward and upward. But we've... More >>
• Robin Hood's Last Meal
  Robin de Bois
  In Robin's case, we had a hard time choosing between two places, so we'll consign him to a progressive last meal at both. First, he'll have the excellent steak sandwich slathered with chipotle mayo at Brooklyn's Robin de Bois (the name is French for "Robin Hood"); then it's on to the Seaport's... More >>
• Wilma Flintstone's Last Meal
  Favela
  Fred's wife will swell with pride as she enjoys the best entree on the menu at Favela, a Brazilian bar and grill in Astoria. The dinosaur-size rib loaded with rich, perfectly grilled meat looks like something that would tip over the Flintstones' foot-powered car, and comes sided with chile... More >>
• James Joyce's Last Meal
  Casa Mono
  We know what the hero of Ulysses likes: "Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod's roes." Is there any doubt that Joyce himself enjoyed the same... More >>
• Gwendolyn Brooks's Last Meal
  Mike's Coffee Shop
  Progressive Chicago poet Gwendolyn Brooks—the first African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize—wrote a half-century ago: "At Joe's Eats/You get your fish or chicken on meat platters/With coleslaw, macaroni, candied sweets/Coffee and apple pie. You go out full." Making us wonder: What's... More >>
• Don Cherry's Last Meal
  A Voce
  Finding a restaurant that served a dish featuring the surname of this beloved jazz trumpeter who worked with Coltrane and Coleman was no easy task. Luckily, A Voce—Andrew Carmellini's sensational Italian restaurant just off Madison Park—is famous for its duck meatballs glazed with... More >>
• Chuck Jones's Last Meal
  Fette Sau
  Prolific cartoonist Chuck Jones worked enough with Daffy, Bugs, and Porky that he deserves some sort of trophy—an edible trophy, we're thinking. Fette Sau, Brooklyn's great new barbecue, has revolutionized bar snacking by smoking pig tails. These are chewy and surprisingly meaty. They go... More >>
• John Lennon's Last Meal
  Baci & Abbracci
  The name Baci & Abbracci means "Hugs and Kisses" in Italian, and that's exactly what we'd like to give the beloved composer and peace activist. We'd settle him in the relaxing backyard and ply him with one of the wonderful wood-oven pizzas—say, the namesake pie, gobbed with fresh... More >>
• Billy Joel's Last Meal
  Via Emilia
  In "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant," the Long Islander sings: "I'll meet you any time you want/In our Italian restaurant." We think it only fair that we invite him to one of ours instead, since we don't trust his taste in food. At the relocated and still exemplary Via Emilia, the emphasis is... More >>
• Golda Meier's Last Meal
  Shalom
  Golda's dirty little secret is that she was once a schoolteacher in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. To teach her about the more exotic types of Jewish diaspora food, we're taking her to Shalom, a kosher Uzbeki joint that replaced Beautiful Bukhara not long ago. Happily, the hummus and the bulging manti... More >>
• Lord Byron's Last Meal
  Pearl Oyster Bar
  Romantic poet and lady-killer George Gordon once said, "A woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and Champagne, the only true feminine & becoming viands." So we think it appropriate that we make him eat his words by downing a pair of lobster rolls at the... More >>
• Pete Townsend's Last Meal
  Turkish Bay Ridge Café
  What we've lined up for the near-deaf Who guitarist is a wonderful kebab meal at the Turkish Bay Ridge Café, where the menu features 10 amazing lamb entrees. In keeping with the musical theme of the evening, we'll precede the kebabs with the feta-filled pastry flutes sometimes called... More >>
• Angelina Jolie's Last Meal
  Treichville
  We suspect that when Angelina flies to Africa to adopt babies, she stays in the finest hotels and eats Western-style gourmet food. Accordingly, we think it only appropriate that she have a real African meal. Let's send her to Treichville, one of the city's few Ivory Coast eateries. There, she'll... More >>
• Brad Pitt's Last Meal
  Troy
  For Mr. Jolie's last supper, we'll have him don the chain-mail miniskirt that shows off his muscular thighs—you know, the one he wore in Troy. And what's the dining venue we have in mind? Why, Troy, of course, the Turkish fast-food spot lurking behind the Port Authority Bus Terminal. And... More >>
• Jimmy Buffet's Last Meal
  Denino's Pizzeria and Tavern
  Down in Margaritaville, folks like to be called "conches." Accordingly, we'll feed old Jimmy a final repast of scungilli salad at Staten Island's beloved Denino's Pizzeria and Tavern. Served cold and dressed with a piquant vinaigrette, the salad is mainly pink swatches of conch interspersed with... More >>
• Hannibal Lecter's Last Meal
  Nomad
  The fictional mass murderer once famously said, "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti." Well, we might not know where to find him a human liver, but we sure know where to find the fava beans and the Chianti: at the North African bistro... More >>
• Anne Sexton's Last Meal
  Loreley
  In one of the weirder poetic fantasies we've ever come across, Sexton writes: "I remember the stink of the liverwurst/How I was put on a platter and laid/between the mayonnaise and the bacon." With this quote vibrating in our minds, how could we feed her anything but liverwurst? Accordingly,... More >>
• Casper the Friendly Ghost's Last Meal
  Himalayan Yak
  This character was a toughy. Food near a cemetery? Something cartoonish? No, we thought long and hard about his essential features—whiteness and insubstantiality—and came up with la phing, a pale, wobbly jelly made from mung beans, a specialty of Himalayan Yak. It comes pooled in a... More >>
• Beck's Last Meal
  Kiosco Piaxtla
  We felt bad when we first listened to "Satan Gave Me a Taco": "Satan gave me a taco/And it made me really sick/The chicken was all raw/And the grease was mighty thick." To redress the injustice, we're giving Mr. Hansen a really, really good chicken taco from Kiosco Piaxtla, another Pueblan... More >>
• Ho Chi Minh's Last Meal
  Pho Mac
  For delivering a profound kick in the ass to misguided American foreign policy, we want the revolutionary Vietnamese hero to have the best Viet food we can muster as his last repast. As such, we'll smuggle him into a rather conservative neighborhood wearing a George Bush mask. There's no better... More >>
• Gypsy Rose Lee's Last Meal
  Strip House
  This is almost too predictable, but we're going to award Gypsy Rose Lee—the stage name of the mother of modern striptease—a full steak dinner at Strip House. She'll feast on (what else?) a New York strip, of which there are two sizes. Given her cup size, we think she deserves... More >>
• Sarah McLachlan's Last Meal
  Il Laboratorio del Gelato
  In "Ice Cream," the Grammy Award–winning Canadian songstress claims that love is better than ice cream. To disabuse her of this absurd notion, we'll be whisking her to Il Laboratorio del Gelato, where one spoonful of chocolate Kahlua, vanilla saffron, black mission fig, or the... More >>
• Superman's Last Meal
  Super Taste
  Before we shoot him with a kryptonite bullet, we've got to find a way to lure him into our clutches. How 'bout inviting him to eat the wonderful "noodles with beef in hot and spicy soup"? This delicacy features hand-pulled noodles that originated in the Inner Mongolian city of Lanzhou. The best... More >>
• Martha Stewart's Last Meal
  Old Poland Bakery and Restaurant
  The WASP-ish doyenne of the wifely arts is really no WASP at all, but a Pole. So let's treat her to a down-home Polish meal of sauerkraut pierogi followed by a pair of boiled pork shanks, sided with a boiled vegetable of her choice and two scoops of mashed potatoes at Old Poland Bakery and... More >>
• Dave Grohl's Last Meal
  Bamboo House
  The Foo Fighters' frontman deserves the city's best egg foo young! This much-maligned cornerstone of Chinese-American cuisine is getting difficult to find. Since the untimely demise of Jade Mountain, Bamboo House has become the East Village's most ancient Cantonese eatery, a maze of red lanterns... More >>
• Romeo's Last Meal
  Juliette
  Where else but Juliette? The sprawling French brasserie offers a splendid roof garden, where the lovelorn stud can drink a bargain bottle of French wine (many in the $20 to $30 range) and use it to wash down any number of diverting snacks, such as toasts smeared with salt cod brandade... More >>
• Orson Welles's Last Meal
  Artisanal
  Though he died massively obese, America's best-loved film director, screenwriter, and actor was once a skinny kid growing up in southeastern Wisconsin. What he needs is a big hunk of cheddar, but we can't just sit him down at a cheese store like Stinky Brooklyn, after all. Instead, the perfect... More >>
• M.F.K. Fisher's Last Meal
  Landmarc
  In An Alphabet for Gourmets, Ms. Fisher intones that "most bereaved souls crave nourishment more tangible than prayers: they want a steak. What is more, they need a steak." And a steak is what Mary Frances shall have. The cudgel-size rib-eye at Landmarc is her cut, singed to a perfect "rare" on... More >>
• Marlon Brando's Last Meal
  Chiyono
  In Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, Brando tells Maria Schneider to "Go get the butter" as a prelude to anal sex. Prodding us to wonder: What does Brando deserve? How about a mouthful of raw squid at Chiyono, which tastes like—shamelessly quoting ourselves —"the gooey aftermath of a... More >>
• George and Ira Gershwin's Last Meal
  Bahry Fish Market
  The composer and lyricist, respectively, of Porgy and Bess deserve to eat the best damn porgy money can buy, so we'll send them to Bahry Fish Market, a miraculous Egyptian place in Bay Ridge that lets you pick your own fish from the bed of ice in the window, then have it grilled and served with... More >>
• Sonic Youth's Last Meal
  Hadramout
  One of our fave SY albums is 1990's Goo, and so we decided to feed the no-longer- youthful band some actual goo. Thus we find ourselves sending them to Hadramout, a café named after a narrow wadi (canyon) near the Empty Quarter Desert in Yemen. There they'll dine on salta, a big... More >>
• Napoleon's Last Meal
  Pommes Frites
  Just imagine the Little Emperor standing on Second Avenue, his right hand tucked inside his brass-buttoned cutaway blue coat, his empress Josephine perched beside him, both of them gorging on a big white cone of greasy french fries from Pommes Frites, where the spuds come twice-fried—a... More >>
• CunningLynguists' Last Meal
  Dosa Hutt
  Deacon the Villain and Kno's first album was titled Will Rap for Food, and we're going to hold them to that boast. In the title track, Deacon raps: "I don't capsize boats/But I got crews flippin'," which made us think of the wonderful South Indian pancakes called uttapam at the sainted Dosa... More >>
• Franz Ferdinand's Last Meal
  Chinatown Ice Cream Factory
  Which Franz Ferdinand do we mean, you ask? First, the Scottish rock band: Since the ensemble is sometimes showered with girls' underpants at their shows, we'll send them to Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, where one of the specialties featured on the counter has long been the CaCa Diaper, a... More >>
• Satan's Last Meal
  El Patio
  The Dark Lord is often portrayed as a goat. Until goat lib comes along, we're allowed to play with the idea. Now, it would be easy to get him a goat roti at one of Flatbush's excellent roti shops, but let's go for something more unusual: How about a serving of the lovely Ecuadorian goat stew at... More >>
• Lindsay Lohan's Last Meal
  New Big Wang
  Let's face it, Lindsay is boy-crazy. What better place for her to eat than New Big Wang, where she can enjoy Chinatown's most appealing charcuterie (ribs, suckling pig, and duck, served with a ginger-scallion relish) and one of the best wonton soups in town, featuring dumplings with a skin so... More >>
• Neil Young's Last Meal
  The Inn LW12
  He gave so much of his genius to the music scene in the States, we feel compelled to treat the weenie-voiced singer with something authentically Canadian. Accordingly, we're sending him to eat at the city's only north-of-the-border restaurant, The Inn LW12. Sitting at the downstairs bar and... More >>
• Tom Thumb's Last Meal
  Harlem Wing and Waffle
  Born Charles Sherwood Stratton in 1838, General Tom Thumb (as he was dubbed by P.T. Barnum) never grew an inch or gained a pound after he reached the age of six months (25 inches, 15 pounds), though he became one of America's most beloved performers—singing, dancing, and miming his way... More >>
• Steely Dan's Last Meal
  Café 47
  Steely Dan's wildly successful third album was Pretzel Logic, so we took it as our mission to find a really weird but good pretzel as a last meal for the band—as well as to commemorate the album's release. A qualifying pretzel magically appeared one afternoon at Café 47, an obscure... More >>
• Alec Baldwin's Last Meal
  Bosna Express
  There's no doubt the handsome, aging actor from Long Island has a big mouth, and he shoots it off all the time. Nothing better to fill it than the giant lamb-and-beef burger called pljeskavica at Bosna Express, a picturesque stall under the M train's tracks. Laced with onions, the hubcap-sized... More >>
• Rosie O'Donnell's Last Meal
  Koronet Pizza
  There's no doubt Rosie has a big mouth, too, even though we took her side against the absurd Donald Trump on The View. (Find a better wig, Donald!) What we have in mind for Rosie is the humongous slice at Koronet Pizza, so big it requires two hands to hoist it. The cheese is good too, and a... More >>
• Sidney Poitier's Last Meal
  Boqueria
  Guess who's coming to dinner? The first African-American actor to win an Academy Award—and a civil-rights activist to boot—Sidney was raised on Cat Island in the Bahamas, so we can't resist giving him a taste of the island staple salt cod. Imagine the sense memories that'll be... More >>
• Fran Lebowitz's Last Meal
  Katsuhama
  Essayist and humorist Fran Lebowitz once said, "Japanese food is very pretty and undoubtedly a suitable cuisine in Japan, which is largely populated by people of below average size. Hostesses hell-bent on serving such food to Occidentals would be well advised to supplement it with something more... More >>
• Karl Marx's Last Meal
  Stanton Social
  The bearded radical would doubtlessly have some pithy (and pissy) things to say about the ongoing transformation of the Lower East Side from an immigrant slum to a playground for Richie Rich. We can't resist piquing his imagination with a plate of the excellent lobster sliders from the Stanton... More >>
• Robert Mitchum's Last Meal
  La Taza de Oro
  Ditch digger, hobo, and eventually Hollywood leading man, Mitchum took many film noir roles, including in Night of the Hunter and Cape Fear. He also had a yen for marijuana, and served a stretch in a California prison farm as a result. Accordingly, we're serving him pot roast, in the form of... More >>
• Nicole Richie's Last Meal
  Crif Dogs
  From one of our favorite food-related websites— www.celebrities-eating.com—we learned that Nicole's favorite food is the amazingly phallic hot dog. And you can't get better weenies anywhere than Crif Dogs, where the logo of a scantily clad gal riding a hot dog might be mistaken for... More >>
• Richard Nixon's Last Meal
  J & L Mall
  The jowly president was the first ever to resign, leaving a legacy whose only positive feature may be the rapprochement with China he engineered. To help him relive the glory days of his 1972 Chinese trip, we're sending him to the closest thing we have to the overpopulated Asian land mass:... More >>
• Sarah Jessica Parker's Last Meal
  Sunset Pizzeria
  In Good Housekeeping, Sarah (or should I say Carrie?) admitted to being obsessed with food and thinking about it even when she's in bed: "Matthew and I will lie in bed at night, and we'll say to each other . . . What are we going to eat? If you get up before me, are you going to make bacon?"... More >>
• 50 Cent's Last Meal
  'wichcraft
  In "Without Meat," the gangsta rapper intones, "I've created a new meat, 'cuz nobody wants to/See turkey no more they want ham." Always striving to please, we're getting Half Dollar a ham sandwich from 'wichcraft—but which one? After a carefully conducted taste panel of all the... More >>
• Julia Stiles's Last Meal
  Bar Six
  Stiles, an alumna of P.S. 3 in the West Village, was once a vegan. In a notorious 2003 interview with Conan O'Brien, she described what it was like chewing on her first post-vegan hamburger: "Oh God, the word orgasm' comes to mind." Intent on giving her another burst of pleasure, we're treating... More >>
• Molière's Last Meal
  B & H Deli
  Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, a/k/a Molière, is the French Shakespeare, specializing in such comedies as The Miser, The Misanthrope, and Tartuffe. A famous trencherman who eschewed the florid language of his contemporaries, he enthused, "I feed on good soup, not beautiful language." We're going... More >>
• Barbara Bush's Last Meal
  Dean's
  The ex–first lady is the current first grandmother, and even though we may not approve of her frowsy, tippling granddaughters, we think she deserves a grandma pie from Dean's, the latest tentacular extension of Nick's Pizza in Forest Hills. The crust is the thickness of a regular... More >>
• Fatty Arbuckle's Last Meal
  Cheburechnaya
  Poor Fatty! The great vaudevillian and silent-film comedian (he invented the pie in the face) had his career ruined by scandal—he was accused of killing actress Virginia Rappe while raping her, though he was later exonerated. We're going to make sure he gets plenty of fat for his final,... More >>
• Bill Murray's Last Meal
  Saigon Banh Mi Bakery
  The lanky, pizza-faced comedian had his first starring film role in the Canadian summer-camp comedy Meatballs, and so as to never let him forget it—in spite of his "serious" roles lately—we're scoring a meatball banh mi for him at the finest Vietnamese sandwich parlor in town, Saigon... More >>
• Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir's Last Meal
  Yo Yo Fritaille
  The goggle-eyed existentialist and his proto-feminist fuck buddy will be treated to one of the highest achievements of French cooking—though one that wasn't created in France itself, but rather in one of her former colonies. The Haitian pork confit called griot is a specialty of the... More >>
• Fidel Castro's Last Meal
  Turks and Frogs
  The Cuban revolutionary leader has rarely been seen without a cigar sticking out of his mouth, but now he's reportedly in such bad health that he probably shouldn't let even an unlit one come in contact with his lips. So we're performing the old bait-and-switch by taking him to Turks and Frogs... More >>
• Frida Kalho's Last Meal
  Gold St.
  For years, it seemed like it was impossible to open a Mexican restaurant without multiple self-portraits of the uni-browed Mexican painter. For her last meal—and perhaps we'll invite her muralist boyfriend Diego Rivera—we're bringing her to Gold St., the new diner-cum-sushi-bar way... More >>
• Madonna's Last Meal
  Taste Good in Elmhurst
  Madonna Louise Ciccone Ritchie has reinvented herself repeatedly, but rarely so persuasively as in her 1998 release Ray of Light, which sold 15 million units and went platinum in several countries. To commemorate the 10th anniversary of its release, we're preparing a progressive Malaysian... More >>
• Dante's Last Meal
  Casa Dante
  Though we were tempted to treat the 13th-century poet to a truly hellish meal at one of Frank Bruni's favorite places to thank him (Dante, not Bruni) for mapping hell in The Divine Comedy, our better side won out, and so we decided to take him to his namesake restaurant, Casa Dante in Jersey... More >>
• The Michelin Rubber Man's Last Meal
  Stand
  He's so cute! Composed of white tires, the Michelin Rubber Man, also known as Bibendum, has been seducing tire buyers since he was introduced in France in 1898. His bulbous figure was also parodied in Ghostbusters. Since he looks like a stack of marshmallows, we decided to treat him to a... More >>
• Lady Bird Johnson's Last Meal
  Hill Country
  Born Claudia Alta Taylor in Karnack, Texas, the long-lived former first lady was a beloved fixture in Austin, where she died earlier this year. Since we respect her and have no idea what she liked to eat, we're taking her to Hill Country, where the barbecue mimics that of Kreuz Market in... More >>
• Martin Luther King's Last Meal
  Sri Ganesh's Dosa House
  The civil-rights activist and Nobel Prize winner espoused a doctrine of civil disobedience inspired by Mohandas Gandhi. He also suffered imprisonment as a result of his activities and lifelong hectoring by the FBI, who suspected he was a communist. In observance of his Indian inspiration, we're... More >>
• Ben Gibbard's Last Meal
  E-Mo
  Sad-sack Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and Postal Service will feel right at home when we blow him to a big feed at E-Mo, a takeout that specializes in big-ass maki rolls, Korean style, served with a free cup of miso soup. Aside from a few fish and meat choices, the majority of the rolls are... More >>
• Albert Einstein's Last Meal
  Albert's Mofongo House
  We're treating the brainy mathematician and astrophysicist to a meal of mofongo (which kinda looks like a big brain) at Albert's Mofongo House, where the deep-fried orbs come perched on a pilon�the Hispano-Caribbean mortar in which the constituent plantain is mashed. Of the... More >>
• Ulysses' Last Meal
  It's Greek to Me
  "You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever/But you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun," as Eric Clapton wrote and Jack Bruce sang in Cream's "Tales of the Brave Ulysses." Being gone from home for 10 years must have been tough, and we're going to award the mariner's... More >>
• The Earl of Sandwich's Last Meal
  Com Tam Lan Anh
  John Montagu, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, is often credited with inventing the sandwich as a convenience that allowed him to dine while he continued playing cards. That sandwich was undoubtedly a roast of some sort cradled in bread. To show how far the sandwich has come between the 18th century... More >>
• Takeru Kobayashi's Last Meal
  En Japanese Brasserie
  Actually, we secretly hoped the most recent hot-dog-eating contest at Nathan's in Coney Island would be his last meal, at which he gave up the mustard belt to somebody with the hilarious name of Joey Chestnut, matching him dog-for-dog up to 66, then throwing three of the weenies up onto his... More >>
• Ogden Nash's Last Meal
  Degustation
  America's favorite comic poet once wrote, "Celery, raw, develops the jaw," which prompts us to play a little trick on him. We'll invite him to Degustation, where one of chef Wesley Genovart's signature dishes is a fried artichoke and a kumamoto oyster deposited in mussel broth topped with... More >>
• Sammy Sosa's Last Meal
  Hosta Halal Gyro
  The home-run king swings for the bleachers using a made-in-Louisville ash bat, but we've got a different bat for him. The outsize Middle Eastern flatbread called lavash teams up with a triumphant combo of herby lamb and greasy chicken gyro to make a baseball-bat-size rolled sandwich at Hosta... More >>
• Lyndon Johnson's Last Meal
  San Francisco De Asis
  LBJ was a devotee of an East Austin joint called Cisco's, which had a back room where pols would hang out over a breakfast of migas, a Tex-Mex staple of eggs scrambled with fried tortilla chips and salsa. Unfortunately, migas are rare in these parts, but I'm sure the banana-nosed president... More >>
• Paul Bunyan's Last Meal
  Peppa's Jerk Chicken
  They say it took 17 storks to deliver the gigantic lumberjack, whose statue still graces many Minnesota vacation towns. To play a gigantic joke on this larger-than-life figure, we'll feed him a meal to remind him of his sidekick, Babe the Blue Ox. The oxtails at Peppa's Jerk Chicken are as good... More >>