Where good eating is our greeting ‘says this delightful 1940s menu from the seafood restaurant Little Shrimp that was located within New York’s famous Chelsea Hotel.

The Chelsea Hotel was built between 1883 and 1884 in Victorian Gothic style and was originally a housing cooperative and home to artists, writers, musicians and entertainers.

Among the notable personalities who stayed there; Mark Twain, Arthur Miller, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Arthus C Clarke, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe and Dylan Thomas.

Within the hotel, there was a Spanish restaurant called El Quijote and Little Shrimp.

Billed as one of America’s Larger and Better Seafood Houses, the seafood offerings included clams, oysters, scallops, halibut, kingfish, pompano, salmon, swordfish, tuna, mackerel, seabass, trout, cod, finan haddie and shrimps that could be fried, sauteed, served a la Newburg or presented in curry or creole sauce.

Open seven days a week, Little Shrimp also had a bar and a cocktail lounge.

The British poet and writer Dylan Thomas, who stayed at the Chelsea Hotel, often dined there before or after drinking at the nearby White Horse Tavern.

Thomas made a total of four trips to the US in the early 1950s, where he recited his masterpieces such as ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’ and ‘And death shall have no dominion.’

He toured with his play Under Milk Wood and, after meetings at Little Shrimp, signed a contract in 1952 with Caedmon Records that led to his milestone recording of A Child’s Christmas in Wales, widely considered to be the world’s first audiobook and launch of the spoken word industry.

A heavy drinker, Thomas died at the age of 39 in 1953 at St Vincent’s Medical Center in Greenwich Village after falling into a coma following a binge in which he allegedly boasted’ I drank 18 straight whiskies; I think it’s a record.’

However, it later transpired Thomas did not die of alcohol poisoning but of pneumonia, brain swelling and a fatty liver after his physician failed to diagnose what was wrong with him.

Little Shrimp is long gone but in 2022 El Quijote re-opened.