You can probably picture the sort of menu that features Clams Casino, Crab Louie, and Steak Diane. It’s oversize, a single card-stock placard, handed to you with great flourish by a waiter wearing a white dress shirt and black bow tie. The background music is piano, played at a gentle volume just out of sight. Elegantly old-school, this kind of fine-dining experience demands a pre-meal martini and might even make you long for a post-dessert smoke.
Fare swanky enough to warrant a proper name began popping up at grand American hotels during the early 1900s, before Prohibition, the Great Depression, and two world wars conspired to stymie the trend. It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that the postwar boom—plus home-ec “innovations” like Swanson TV Dinners and Duncan Hines cake mixes—transformed eating out into an exercise in accessible extravagance. Suddenly, flambé ruled the day as sirloin (Steak Diane) and tropical fruit (Bananas Foster) were doused in alcohol and set afire tableside. Indulgences that had been denied in the lean years, such as shellfish, now came topped with bacon and butter (Clams Casino) or rich rémoulade sauce (Crab Louie). Since then, times have changed and changed again, but that doesn’t mean you can’t dress to the nines, pour a stiff drink, and gild a few culinary lilies. These five classics from the SAVEUR vault prove that more really feels like more.
Clams Casino Maura McEvoy Maura McEvoy
Adorned with a smoky shallot-paprika butter and crisp shards of bacon, these
