By the 1940s America’s love affair with Chinese cuisine was in full swing. Chinese restaurants – often called chop suey houses – advertised the stir-fried meat and veg dish proudly and there was often a choice of beef, chicken, shrimp or veg. However, the dish was really invented in the US by Chinese immigrant restaurateurs, using ingredients that were readily available and to suit Western tastes.
Famous New York steakhouse Keens is probably one of the only places you’ll now find a juicy, grilled mutton chop on the menu. But back in the day, the bone-in lamb dish was a common find at upscale restaurants around the city. Now it’s largely fallen out of favor due to diners’ preference for beef steaks.
Creamy chicken, mushrooms and peppers on toast featured on hundreds of menus throughout the first half of the century. One of them being famed steakhouse Keens in 1941. Despite its fancy French-sounding name, it’s actually an American creation.
This indulgent dish of baked clams with butter, bacon and breadcrumbs was invented by maître d’ Julius Keller of the now-closed Narragansett Pier Casino in 1917. However, it wasn’t until the post-war boom that indulgent dishes such as clams casino were enjoyed in swanky hotel restaurants by the masses.
This curious dish, often made with cream, tomatoes, sherry, and of course turtle meat, was a common meal for the working man and elite in the 18th and 19th centuries. Even in the 1940s and 1950s you could find it at members’ clubs like the Philadelphia Club in Philadelphia and Keens in New York. However, soon after that it disappeared from menus.
The specialty at mom-and-pop restaurants throughout the 1950s, this light-as-air dessert is quite different from a lemon meringue pie. The filling is a lemon mousse made from whipped egg whites folded into the lemon curd. It’s poured into a blind-baked pie crust, topped with whipped cream and served chilled.
If you were dining out in the 1950s, steak Diane was the most sophisticated thing you could order. It featured a rich sauce made from shallots, Worcestershire sauce, Dijon mustard, stock, Cognac and black pepper. Plus it was flambéed tableside – a sure-fire way to impress your date.
Found in the appetizer section alongside clams, caviar, smoked salmon and fruit suprême (fruit cocktail), shrimp cocktail was served in a martini glass with spicy tomato sauce and a lemon wedge. Anywhere worth its salt had it on the menu in the 1950s, including the Waldorf Astoria, New York, and the Golden Gate Casino, Las Vegas.
Far more common on menus in the Fifties than it is today, sautéed calf’s liver was a wholesome dish of sliced liver and onions fried in butter with herbs. At the Waldorf Astoria, New York, it was served with bacon and broccoli. Fans of offal may have also been interested to try the omelet with duckling livers which featured on the menu too.
Strawberry shortcake, with crumbly, light cake sandwiched with whipped cream and fresh berries, wasn’t a dessert you had every day. Served at the Waldorf Astoria, New York, and other upscale establishments at the time, it was a real special occasion sweet treat.
A creamy, velvety leek, potato and onion soup that’s served chilled, vichyssoise was invented at the Ritz Carlton, New York, in 1917. It was just the thing to tempt appetites in summer and took the city by storm. In 1960, food writer Clementine Paddleford famously wrote “every New York restaurant of any rating serves the soup, and no two alike.”
The indulgent pairing of seafood and red meat came about in the 1960s. A particularly indulgent version is beef tenderloin served with lobster tail. Sky City, the restaurant which sits on top of Seattle's Space Needle, is thought to be one of the first places it was served in 1962 during the World’s Fair.
This flambéed favorite never goes out of fashion. It’s a French crêpe, doused in a sauce made with orange zest, sugar, butter, orange liqueur and Cognac, and set alight so it becomes caramelized and smoky. Although it was invented in the 19th century, it was ubiquitous on 1960s menus.
With cheese fondue the height of fashion in the US during this era, it was only a matter of time before the chocolate version was invented. Created by Swiss restaurateur Konrad Egli at Chalet Suisse in New York, the original was made from cream, kirsch and Toblerone, and served with walnut pastries and orange slices for dipping.
If you were eating out at fine dining establishments in the 1960s, you can guarantee you ordered chicken cordon bleu. Chicken breast is wrapped around ham and Swiss cheese, coated in breadcrumbs, and pan-fried or baked. It originated in Switzerland but really took off in the US, even featuring on an United Airlines advert from the decade.
A classic Chicago dish, shrimp de Jonghe is a garlicky, herby seafood casserole. It was created by Belgian immigrant Henri de Jonghe at De Jonghe's Hotel and Restaurant around the turn of the 20th century. However, another restaurateur Enzo Pagni came across the dish and put it on the menu at now-closed Italian-American restaurant Sabatino’s in the late 1970s.
Deep-fried potato skins topped with cheese, bacon and sour cream found their way into sports bars in the 1970s. It was an ingenious way to turn what would otherwise go into the trash into a sell-out appetizer. Iconic chain TGI Fridays is credited for starting the trend.
Although the initial wave of fanaticism was over, the 1970s was when fondue became part of everyday American food culture. The chain Melting Pot, where families went to celebrate birthdays and other special events over a pot of hot cheese, opened its first store in Florida. Over the next 30 years it opened 100 more locations.
Believe it or not, this veggie pasta dish had a lot of hype. Featuring asparagus, broccoli, zucchini, tomatoes and peas, it was made famous by French restaurant Le Cirque in New York. It soon spread to Italian restaurants around the country, and became one of the best options for vegetarians.
Sushi's popularity soared in the 1970s partly thanks to the invention of California rolls, a type of maki roll with nori (seaweed) inside and fillings like cucumber, crab and avocado. LA restaurant Tokyo Kaikan is generally regarded as the home of ‘American sushi’, although other chefs have also laid claim to the title.
You might not think twice about ordering this sweet and smoky creation, but when it debuted in the 1980s it was new and really out-there. Gourmet pizza chain California Pizza Kitchen had just opened, helped by Ed LaDou (the man behind smoked salmon pizza), and barbecue chicken pizza was its big hitter.
It was Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme who introduced blackened redfish to the world. The dish consists of buttered fillets coated in cayenne and spices, and seared until burnt. The dish went on the menu at K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen in New Orleans, in the 1980s. The cooking method caught on and now you can find blackened just about anything.
Restaurant owners from the Rio Grande Valley on the Texas-Mexico border were the first to serve grilled skirt steak with cooked peppers and onions, in soft tortillas, in the 1970s. Here the dish had been a regular at backyard barbecues and cattle roundups for decades. Its popularity spread quickly and 'Sizzling Fajitas' was added to the menu at the Hyatt Regency, Austin, in 1982.
Although it existed earlier than the 1980s, this was the decade Chinese chicken salad came into its own. A Chinese-American dish, most versions include chicken pieces, a soy sauce dressing, cabbage or lettuce leaves, and perhaps crispy noodles, wonton skins or fruit pieces. Wolfgang Puck put a version on the menu at Asian-French fusion restaurant Chinois, Santa Monica, in 1983. The Cheesecake Factory followed suit.
The popularity of this previously little-known pudding exploded in the 1980s. The mascarpone, sponge finger, espresso and cocoa powder dessert was served in New York suburbs, San Francisco and even at Le Relais Plaza, Paris. It was so ubiquitous The New York Times even asked "How does a dessert that was barely known in New York three years ago suddenly become so popular?"
This rich chocolate cake with a molten chocolate core was an overnight success when Jean-Georges Vongerichten served it at his New York restaurant JoJo. Within months, versions appeared on menus everywhere. It’s still commonplace today and still loved, but no longer as exciting.
This 1920s salad of romaine lettuce, coddled eggs, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, olive oil, grated Parmesan and croutons reached its pinnacle in the 1990s. You could find it everywhere from coffee shops to elegant European restaurants. At New York’s One Fifth, it was more popular than the seafood appetizers. It was even forced to go underground in California when the state banned this dish due to salmonella fears.
The Chinese delicacy xiao long bao – paper-thin dumplings filled with hot soup – made its way to America in 1995. Taking inspiration from Din Tai Fung in Taipei, restaurateur Joe Si opened Joe’s Shanghai in Flushing, New York, and put the novel item on the menu. Word spread and soon copycat versions were available all around the city.
On the menu at White Castle since the 1920s, these bite-sized burgers got gourmet in the 2000s. Featuring juicy patties, brioche buns and elaborate toppings, they were nothing like their fast food counterparts. They could be found at high-end steakhouses such as Bourbon Steak, J&G Steakhouse and Don & Charlie's in Scottsdale, Arizona, introduced to entice budget-conscious diners.
When Momofuku Noodle Bar opened in New York in 2004, it changed how America viewed ramen forever. It was no longer seen as a five-minute dinner for students on a budget. People lined up outside the city’s ramen houses to eat hot bowls of fresh noodles, pork belly and veg served in broth that took seven hours to make.
Although it was around in the 1980s and 1990s, this dainty dessert reached peak popularity in the 2000s. It features rich vanilla custard topped with a crisp, caramelized sugar shell. These days you can find it in the dessert aisle at grocery stores and enjoy what was once reserved to restaurants in the comfort of your own home.