The Best And Worst Old-School Dishes To Order At A Restaurant

We've noticed several unexpected old-school dishes showing up on restaurant menus lately. Trendy restaurants are discovering old favorites like grits, baked Alaska, and pimento cheese and serving them to their customers. As we poured through reviews for these retro dishes, the ones getting good and bad reviews weren't necessarily what we expected. Somehow, liver dishes and aspics are among the most liked, while time-honored dishes like meatloaf and deviled eggs aren't doing as well. Of course, sometimes it's about whether or not the restaurant is able to make food as good as your mama's, and the answer is often no.

Of the 22 retro dishes making a comeback on restaurant menus, five dishes aren't really passing muster. However, the other 17 are making waves. If you're lucky enough to see some of the standouts like beef Wellington, lobster Thermidor, or Tournedos Rossini the next time you dine out, we think you'll be pleasantly surprised if you give them a try.

If you grew up in the southern part of the U.S., you were just as likely to have a pimento cheese sandwich in your school lunch box as a PB&J. The spread debuted in a 1908 Good Housekeeping recipe, but home cooks eventually replaced the pimento spread recipe's cream cheese and mustard with cheddar cheese chunks and mayonnaise After World War II.

Recently, pimento cheese has made its way to restaurant menus. Feltner Brothers in Fayetteville, Arkansas, has a wildly popular Hometown Burger on its menu served with pimento cheese instead of a slice of cheese. Meanwhile, New York City's Root and Bone is serving up its cheese grits with pimento cheese mixed in, and customers are loving it.

Once upon a time, you only really found grits in the southern portion of the U.S. and almost exclusively for breakfast. But now, you'll find them on trendy menus across the U.S., and they're not just for the morning anymore. Chefs everywhere are experimenting with different ingredients to add to bring them to life. And the most popular pairing is usually shrimp and grits.

At Snooze, an A.M. Eatery, with locations around the country, the shrimp and grits contain tomatoes and mushrooms, with hot sauce for added heat. And at Red's Flavor Table in Inglewood, California, you might even find grits paired with salmon, jambalaya, or even short ribs.

New Zealanders and Australians fight over who created the pavlova dessert to honor Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, who danced in both their countries in the 1920s. Wherever it originated, it's delightful. Pavlovas are meringue-based cakes that are crisp on the outside and soft and marshmallow-like inside. They're layered with fresh or preserved fruit fillings, along with whipped cream and sometimes nuts.

You normally can't go wrong with ordering this retro menu item now that they've become more popular on menus. Since most come with fresh fruit, it's one of the most refreshing desserts you can find. You can find them in various flavors, including rum-soaked cherries and mascarpone, fluffernutter, passion fruit, chocolate, coconut panna cotta, and lemon cream.

Steak tartare has been on French menus since the late 1800s, with diners becoming extremely fond of ordering the dish in the 1950s before it faded from menus. However, steak tartare is now among retro foods making a comeback. It tends to be wildly popular with anyone willing to brave eating a dish made with seasoned raw beef and raw eggs.

However, the real issue is whether or not steak tartare is safe to eat. According to the USDA, the raw meat and raw eggs in steak tartare have been linked to dangerous food poisoning outbreaks. Heating your meat and eggs beyond temperatures that keep them raw is the only way to kill bacteria that can lead to illness. So eating steak tartare is always a health risk.

Cooks most likely began filling eggs with their own innards in Spain in the 1200s. While deviled eggs were once only a dish you usually saw at home or at potlucks, but they've evolved into a trendy restaurant appetizer. While very few people sit down and gobble up a large quantity of plain boiled eggs, once you've added a condiment like mayo and other flavoring components like bacon, people suddenly can't stop popping them in their mouths.

While you don't have to get your deviled eggs from grandma's kitchen anymore, getting them from a restaurant can be hit or miss. Some restaurants like Jar in Los Angeles are making interesting ones like crab deviled eggs that people love, but some flavors leave diners unhappy. And when restaurants make them too far in advance, they suffer in both texture and flavor.

When your ice cream cake comes to your table covered in a fiery meringue, you can't help but be impressed. Chef Charles Ranhofer dreamed up the baked Alaska at Delmonico's Restaurant in New York City, New York, so it doesn't come from Alaska. Instead, this delightful dessert celebrated the 1867 acquisition of Alaska as a state.

The only people complaining about baked Alaska are people who find it suddenly missing from the menu. You just can't go wrong with a flaming layered ice cream cake. It's not only a production piece that turns dessert into an experience, but it also tastes amazing. So if you ever see this old-school dish on the menu, be sure to save room for dessert.

The humble wedge salad first shows up in the 1916 "Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing Dish Recipes" cookbook. Within a few years, restaurants across the U.S. were placing an intact wedge of iceberg lettuce on a plate with a few extra ingredients and calling it a salad. The dish morphed over time to include crumbles of bacon and blue cheese and a topping of creamy dressing.

In the past few years, the lazy salad maker's dream salad has made a comeback on restaurant menus. Unfortunately, it's hit or miss. Customers complain about getting lettuce that's not very fresh or all white rather than green. Some miss having more toppings like tomato or red onions. It is a simple salad, but not every restaurant is getting it right, especially when their focus is more on the quality of their meat rather than their produce.

Until recently, southerners who visited other regions or moved out of the South weren't able to easily find their beloved collard and turnip greens. These core vegetables in southern and soul food cooking can be bitter if not cooked correctly. But when you find someone who knows how to cook them, they're flavorful and delicious.

Rather than only looking for greens in the South or in southern food restaurants, you can now even find turnips and collards in far-flung places all over. And they're not only in southern restaurants anymore. It's important to note that turnips and collards often contain pork for flavoring. So, if you're a vegetarian or don't eat pork, it's a good idea to ask about the meat content before ordering.

The French have been making liver pâtés for centuries, with specific ones like pâté de foie gras first appearing in the 1700s. While chicken liver was often among the pieces of a chicken many of us avoided as a child, turning it into a flavorful pâté has the capacity to delight our palates. Adding chicken stock, butter, garlic, onion, and brandy to a strong and earthy liver transforms it into something worthy of a fine restaurant.

Throughout cities like New York, you'll find chicken liver pâtés on scores of menus, with many restaurants serving it with tasty bread for spreading. Diners absolutely adore them, often finding that they like them even better than foie gras spreads.

While we're not exactly sure when casseroles first appeared in kitchens, but they go back at least to the 1700s. However, it wasn't until the Great Depression that they became a staple of U.S. cuisine when home cooks were trying to stretch ingredients as far as possible.

Old-school casseroles are showing back up on restaurant menus, and they're doing better than you'd expect for a retro dish that is often reheated rather than made fresh. Cracker Barrel has had a perpetual hit with its hashbrown casserole. However, restaurants are now churning out all sorts of comforting casseroles, including old favorites like green bean casserole, and more inventive dishes like lamb chop casserole, spaghetti squash casserole, and seafood casserole.

It turns out that people like liver more than you'd think because it is also showing up on menus as a component of Tournedos Rossini. This old-school dish starts out with a piece of beef steak atop of a slice of toasted bread. Then the cook adds a layer of foie gras, truffle slices, and plenty of Madeira sauce to cascade over the layers. A chef first made this exquisite yet comforting dish for Italian composer Gioachino Antonio Rossini in the 1800s.

Whether diners order rib eye, filet mignon, or some other steak cut for their Tournedos Rossini, they're always ecstatic about their culinary experience. Even in the heart of plain steak country, like St. Martins in Dallas, Texas, diners are loving the Tournedos Rossini's comeback.