by | August 28, 2026
Yesterday’s Specials: Nostalgic Dishes on Today’s Menus
These days, a whole lot of fancy restaurants are serving nostalgia, right down to actual TV dinners. And I’m there for it.
I took my new bride to my hometown years ago, and we went pretty quickly to D’Angelo’s. I found myself making excuses for the place as we walked in, not remembering the yellow overhead lights, the sticky tables or, when the food arrived, that the subs were not in fact very good.
My wife was a vegetarian at the time, and I remember watching her pick out the brown bits of iceberg lettuce and cukes and tomatoes, leaving her basically with a mayo sandwich.
It was nostalgia, I think, that convinced me that D’Angelo’s was better. My dad would take me after track practice, and I’d polish off a footlong without bothering to wipe the cheesesteak grease dripping down my arm. The sub probably wasn’t very good even then. What mattered was sharing it with Big Al, who’d have to go back to work later to make up for the time he broke away to eat pretty mediocre subs with his son.
It wasn’t whether the sub was any good. It was that the company was perfect.
—Eric Barton
It’s nostalgia that fuels a lot of menus these days. I thought Delilah sounded pretty gimmicky when it arrived in Miami from Los Angeles a few years back, but I found myself enamored with the chicken tenders, pigs in a blanket and hot fudge sundaes.
There are so many examples. The Pearl in Tampa serves deviled eggs and tots. Blue Bamboo in Jacksonville does a pork chop in an old-school sweet and sour sauce. And the West Palm throwback diner Howley’s probably does nostalgia with more commitment than anyone, with a modern take on a TV dinner that changes nightly and is served in a sectioned-off plate. I only wish they’d serve it on a fold-up tray in front of the boob tube.
What got me thinking about this nostalgia idea recently was the new Pizza Hut Classic in Homosassa Springs. It’s a recreation of what was my favorite pizza place when I was very young, right down to the Tiffany-style lamps and greasy pan pizzas. I probably haven’t had a slice from Pizza Hut in 30 years, but I can still remember standing around at the all-you-can-eat buffet at lunch impatiently waiting for them to bring out another pizza. They always seemed to get their money’s worth by bringing out pizzas slowly, figuring we’d all have to be somewhere else before we’d fill up on pizza.
After looking at online reviews of the Pizza Hut Classic, I don’t think I’ll be testing the power of nostalgia there. But if I make it out to L.A., I do want to try a slice from Chain, where two esteemed chefs channel the Hut in creating pan pies.
I know some people roll their eyes at chefy recreations, like the steak tartare at Slim Charmer in St. Pete that one reviewer likened to a Big Mac. But there’s a moment I think about a lot when considering what makes a restaurant work. It happened years ago at Jeremy Ford’s Miami Beach restaurant Stubborn Seed, when my wife took a bite of the cacio e pepe cheese puff, served with bread and butter pickles. She told our server about how it took her back to the grilled cheese her grandfather used to make her after school, pickles on the side. The server said, “Funny, but the table over there just told me basically the same thing.”
That, I think, is the real pull of nostalgia on a menu. You order a cheese puff in Miami Beach and, for a bite, you’re back after school with your grandfather—or fresh from track practice, eating a mediocre cheesesteak with Big Al. It wasn’t whether the sub was any good. It was that the company was perfect.
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About the Author
Eric has been a journalist in Florida for two decades, including stints at newspapers in Fort Pierce, Stuart and Sarasota. His role at Flamingo includes everything from interviewing chefs to first-line editing on cover stories and penning our monthly culinary newsletter, Key Lime.
