At least online, there are no longer tickets available to tonight’s New York Public Library discussion of William Grimes’s Appetite City, with Grimes, Ruth Reichl and Dan Barber. But for another, free angle on restaurant history, NYU’s Maison Française is hosting “Balzac, Restaurants, and Gastronomy,” with author Anka Muhlstein and Olivier Muller, chef de cuisine at DB Bistro Moderne (7:00 pm; via the discreetly indispensable Platform for Pedagogy).