27 things that disappeared from restaurant menus

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Fancy a bowl of crispy garlic mushrooms, followed by fish swimming in cream and finishing with flambéed favourite Crêpes Suzette when you dine out? You might struggle, unless you’re eating in a deliberately retro-cool restaurant or find a spot where time has stood still. Here we look at the most popular dishes from the past century that have fallen out of fashion and disappeared from all but the most old-school of restaurant menus.

Vichyssoise

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This chilled soup was invented in 1917 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York – by a French chef of course – and was a mainstay of fine dining menus for many decades to come. Leeks, onions, potatoes, chicken broth and cream were puréed together to create a velvety texture. Nowadays it tends to only be found on decidedly old-fashioned menus which is a shame, as it’s fun to try to get your chops around the pronunciation.

Stewed kidneys

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Offal has risen in popularity lately, especially in restaurants that focus on ‘nose to tail’ eating. But in the early 20th century, the fanciest of restaurants always had lamb or beef kidneys on the menu, usually stewed in rich meaty stock with garlic and herbs, and often served with toast. Devilled kidneys – lamb kidneys cooked in a spiced sauce – were also incredibly popular.

Peach melba

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Peach melba, a joyfully simple dessert with poached peaches and ice cream balanced with sharp, tart raspberry sauce, was created at London’s The Savoy at the end of the 19th century and was a classic on menus around the world for much of the 20th century. It’s far less common now but with its beautifully balanced flavours and striking colours, perhaps it deserves a comeback.

Duck à l’orange

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The roots of this classic meat and fruit combo are believed to be French but it was iconic TV chef Julia Child who helped make it a staple of restaurant menus in the US and UK. The potential for elegant presentation and the zingy combination of sticky-sweet and sour made it particularly suited to fine dining establishments.

Give duck à l’orange a go at home with our recipe

Chicken à la King

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Chicken à la King now seems more like a home-cooked supper than a posh restaurant dish. But this comforting, cream-laced combination of peas, carrots, mushrooms and peppers, served with rice or on toast, was a particular hit for wedding breakfasts and appeared on many upscale menus during the 1950s and 1960s. However, its popularity had plummeted by the 1980s – perhaps because it isn’t particularly pretty.

Mutton chops

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Meaty mutton chops, usually grilled, basted in jus and served on the bone, were devoured at restaurants throughout much of the 20th century. One of the most famous was Keens Steakhouse in New York City. But today lamb has taken over in popularity and mutton chops are rarely seen. Unless you're talking about the full sideburn beards, that is.

Sole Véronique

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Another turn-of-the-century invention, created by famous French chef Auguste Escoffier, this dish was part of a trend of serving flaky white fish swimming in creamy sauce. Dover sole fillets were poached in white wine and topped with a sauce of double cream, herbs and, erm, grapes. It was delicious and deservedly popular, especially in French restaurants and bistros.

Coquilles Saint-Jacques

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Another rich and creamy seafood dish with French origins, coquilles Saint-Jacques consists of scallops sautéed in butter, topped with a mix of Gruyère cheese and breadcrumbs, then finished to a golden, bubbly brown under the grill. Celebrity chef Julia Child and cookery writer Elizabeth David helped to spread its popularity in the US in the 1960s but you'll only see it now in the most old-school of French restaurants.

Chicken tetrazzini

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Named for Italian opera star Luisa Tetrazzini and believed to have been invented in San Francisco, this baked spaghetti dish with chicken (or sometimes turkey), mushrooms, Parmesan and cream resembles something you might throw together in hungover desperation. Not that it isn’t delicious – just another dish that, having been hugely popular from the early 20th century into the 1960s, fell out of favour as presentation became more important.

Oyster pan roast

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Oysters tend to be served fresh and on the half shell now but many old-school recipes saw them cooked (sometimes to oblivion) and smothered in something creamy or cheesy, or both. This 'pan roast’ of oysters, simmered in a cream sauce like a soup, was hugely popular along the US East Coast in the first half of the 20th century.

Bananas Foster

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Setting foods aflame was all the rage in the 1950s, especially desserts. This classic of bananas in caramel sauce, doused in rum and set alight, was created at New Orleans restaurant Brennan’s and ignited passions at restaurants across the US. It’s still a favourite at Brennan’s but it isn’t as common on menus as it was back in the day, perhaps because the showiness of table-side flambéing is considered a little old-fashioned.

Steak Diane

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Savoury dishes didn’t escape the flambé trend. Poor old steak Diane regularly went up in flames in restaurants in the 1950s and 1960s, when thick steaks were smothered in a rich combination of shallots, mustard, stock, Cognac, black pepper and Worcestershire sauce, and set alight to diners’ delight. No one really knows who Diane was, exactly, but the dish emerged in post-war US.

Denver sandwich

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Which came first: the omelette or the sandwich? Theories abound as to the origins of the Denver omelette – with onion, peppers, cheese, ham and mushrooms – and the frankly genius idea to slap it into a sandwich. Stories range from Chinese immigrants working on railroads to restaurateurs operating in the Colorado city. It’s still widely considered the city’s signature dish, although it’s now rarely encountered on menus in diners and cafés elsewhere.

Coq au vin

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French for ‘cockerel in wine’, this is another classic popularised in the US by the powerhouse that was Julia Child – the TV chef included a recipe in her seminal 1960s cookbook, Mastering the Art French Cooking. The combination of chicken simmered in a rich red wine sauce with carrots, lardons and mushrooms is a real cockle-warmer, especially served with a good dollop of mashed potato. But it’s far less common on bistro menus nowadays, sadly.

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Pork medallions

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Every bistro worth its salt (and massive pepper mill) would have had these tender pork tenderloin rounds on the menu in the 1970s, usually smothered in a creamy mustard sauce. While you’ll often find something similar in restaurants today, the word ‘medallions’ is rarely used, aside from in an ironic, retro kind of way.

Crêpes Suzette

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Perhaps the king of the table-side flambé, crêpes Suzette is all about the spectacle: pancakes in caramel sauce, orange juice and zest are drowned in an orange liqueur like Grand Marnier and set alight in the pan. It does still hold a kind of cult status and, like the prawn cocktail, is a favourite for retro-themed meals. But it isn’t the symbol of lavish luxury like it once was.

Give our recipe for crêpes Suzette a go

Veal cordon bleu

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People dug into these breaded veal cutlets, stuffed with ham and cheese, at French restaurants around the US from the 1950s into the 1990s. Now, whether it’s because rich foods and French cuisine aren’t top of the trend tree or because we like our plates to be prettier, dishes like this are far less prevalent on today’s restaurant menus.

Fondue

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A dream for cheese lovers but a nightmare for food-sharing phobics, fondue was the hot dining trend throughout the 1970s, having hit America’s food scene via the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Bread-dipping days were numbered, however, as people swerved towards more health-conscious foods. The good news is it’s now making a slight return with specialist fondue restaurants and retro-themed menus popping up.

Minute steak

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The minute steak – pounded to within an inch of its life – didn’t come rare, medium or well-done. It came after being cooked for a minute, which usually meant brown through and through. Popular in the mid-20th century, the wafer-thin steaks are still served in some casual cafés, served with fries and a round of herb butter, but no longer on fancy restaurant menus.

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Prawn cocktail

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Once upon a time, this dish of shellfish swimming in a thick, creamy pink sauce wasn’t an ironic, retro dish to serve at a dinner party – it was the height of dining sophistication. From the mid-1950s and throughout the 1970s, prawns in Marie Rose sauce were a standard starter in posh restaurants, ideally arriving in a fancy cocktail glass.

Chicken in a basket

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Believed to have been invented at a pub in the Cotswolds in the UK, chicken in a basket was exactly what it sounds like – battered, deep-fried chicken legs thrown in a plastic basket with fries. Today, you’re more likely to see fried chicken and chips served on plates, although the trend of serving burgers on chopping boards could be seen as a modern reinvention of the basket.

Pasta primavera

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It’s been usurped by the huge variety of interesting and inventive vegetarian dishes available today but, when it was created at New York’s swish Le Cirque restaurant in the 1970s, pasta primavera stood out as one of the few delicious options for non-carnivores. The dish was pasta with fresh, seasonal vegetables, bound together with broth or tomato sauce.

Food towers

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Tall food grew (and grew and grew) as a trend in the 1980s and 1990s, when top chefs mainly in the US and UK competed to serve the most vertiginous creations. They’d layer up food like fruit salads and sushi using metal rings or soup cans as moulds and supporting with cylinders of dried-out bread. It became the zenith of fine dining presentation until falling out of fashion by the end of the century.

Surf ’n' turf

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From the 1960s into the 1990s, you couldn’t move for enormous platters of steak and lobster – ideal for diners with massive appetites or just those who find it hard to decide. You can still find combinations of seafood and red meat in some pubs, steakhouses and barbecue joints, but it’s gone from groundbreaking to rather old-fashioned.

Potato skins

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This thrifty dish was a starter of choice in the 1980s and effectively an ingenious way for restaurants to use up potato skins. They were either served ‘loaded’ with toppings including cheese, sour cream, chives and chilli con carne, or just crisp and golden with dips on the side. And it was guaranteed that anyone who didn’t order them would sneak a few from your plate.

Garlic mushrooms

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Remember when mushrooms were a starter staple on pretty much every menu, from pubs to fancy bistros? Whether it was cute-as-a-button button mushrooms swimming in garlic butter or breaded and fried fungi served with a creamy, garlicky dip, it was pretty much guaranteed that at least half of those on your table would order them.

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Molten chocolate cake

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It’s disputed whether this gooey pud was invented by a US or French chef, but who really cares so long as it has the all-important ooze in the middle? From its first appearance on restaurant menus in the late 1990s, it was the definition of a romantic dessert and one you had to order at the start of the meal so the chef had notice. The cakes – deliberately undercooked to create the ‘lava flow’ of chocolate in the centre – are still erupting in home kitchens and some restaurants, although they’re not as ubiquitous as they were.