Regional American

At Loyal Nine, chef and owner Marc Sheehan aims to celebrate the culinary heritage of New England, while giving it a modern spin for today’s customers. But what is New England cuisine? Heavily influenced by English cuisine, New England cuisine takes you back to the very founding of the U.S., and it features ingredients from the land (cranberries, corn, squash) and the sea (lobster, oysters, clams). At Loyal Nine, customers will find New England-influenced options like a classic lobster roll slathered in mayo, Rhode Island-style salt and pepper calamari, and a classic English “Toad in the Hole” featuring a soft, runny egg served inside brioche and topped with mushroom gravy, charred onions, and smoked carrot. Another option that is rarely found outside of New England is brown bread, a type of molasses bread that is typically steamed. At Loyal Nine it shows up in a dish called the Brown Eyed Susan, which features griddled brown bread, duck confit, “holidaise,” a frisee and pear salad, and two poached eggs to top it all off.

New York has a culinary culture all its own, whether it’s New York pizzerias, bodegas, or Jewish delis, the latter of which was created in New York when Katz’s Delicatessen opened in 1888. In fact, New York’s regional food culture is so distinct that New York-style restaurants can now be found across the country, from bagel shops to modern takes on the Jewish deli like Wise Sons, which has a number of locations around the San Francisco and Oakland area. Eggs are omnipresent on the menu, from matzo scrambled eggs to a deli scramble made with chopped pastrami and corned beef to chopped liver toast served on schmaltz-griddled rye with a shaved egg. The bodega and cheese sandwich, however, combines two New York institutions into one of Wise Sons’ most popular offerings, serving scrambled egg, melted cheese, and aioli on a toasted bialy. For a true New York option customers can add crispy pastrami, or for a more California-inspired take they can opt for smashed avocado.

There are many different regional cuisines found throughout the Midwest, from Chicago’s meat-driven food culture to the toasted ravs and gooey butter cake of St. Louis. Head up to Wisconsin, however, and you’ll find a cuisine with plenty of brats, cheese curds, fish boils, and possibly the most iconic Wisconsin food institution of them all: the supper club. Owner Tim Doherty brings that supper club experience – he is a Milwaukee native, after all – to Denver with The Shanty Supper Club, where customers will find Friday fish fries, Midwestern pot roast, and Wisconsin butter burgers. Meanwhile, the brunch menu features options like prime rib served with two eggs and cheesy potato casserole, a butter burger topped with an egg and served with beer cheese soup.

While everyone knows Tex-Mex cuisine, Cal-Mex cuisine may be a little newer to those outside of California. The combination of California and Mexican cuisines creates a unique regional cuisine in the U.S. that combines Mexican favorites like tacos and burritos with the healthier, leaner ingredients that California is often known for. At Aqui Cal-Mex, which has five locations around the San Jose and Cupertino area, Cal-Mex cuisine means using lots of natural and organic ingredients like superfoods and sustainable seafood. The menu features options like West Coast salmon with a black rice-pumpkin seed cake, vegetarian avocado roasted corn bowls, and a Baja tilapia burrito. Over the past year Aqui has also offered a wide range of to-go options, including breakfast plates like blue corn pancakes served with turkey-apple sausage, fresh fruit, and scrambled eggs, or breakfast enchiladas with roma tomato sauce and scrambled eggs.

Considering it’s about 2,500 miles from the mainland, it’s perhaps no surprise that Hawaii has its own regional American cuisine and culture. The island chain’s cuisine celebrates everything from its Polynesian heritage to influences from Japan, China, Portugal, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and beyond, not to mention the plentiful seafood and tropical fruits found throughout the islands. At Koko Head Café, chef Lee Anne Wong puts Hawaiian cuisine front and center, including in her signature Koko Moco dish, a take on loco moco that features a local beef patty, garlic rice, mushroom gravy, tempura kimchi, and a sunny-side up egg. It’s just one of the many egg-based dishes on the menu, which range from congee with Portuguese sausage and a soft-poached egg to a poke omelette with masago aioli.

Deviled eggs aren’t exactly an uncommon menu item on menus throughout the South – and across the entire U.S., for that matter. After all, the comfort foods associated with Southern American cuisine are popular from coast to coast. So it’s saying something that the drunken deviled eggs at Root & Bone have become their most iconic menu item. Top Chef contestants Janine Booth and Jeff McInnis opened the first Root & Bone in New York to numerous accolades, and they followed up that success with a Miami location in late 2018. Back to those deviled eggs, though, which feature eggs pickled in house-made beet juice filled with an egg yolk filling made with Tabasco, rice vinegar, turmeric, capers, and chives, and it’s all topped with diced pickled beets, a housemade sweet potato chip, dill, and sea salt.