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Many ingredients and flavors that shaped Colonial America can still be enjoyed.
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Taking a Bite
Out of History
In many of the original 13 colonies, travelers can sit down in buildings that date to America’s founding and tuck into Colonial-inspired dishes.
By Amity Moore Joyce
Long before America had drive-thrus and diners, America’s founders and early Colonists gathered around candlelit tables inside inns and public houses. Platters of roasted game, seafood from nearby waters, local fruits and vegetables, and Indian corn paired available ingredients with the young nation’s cultures and traditions. Many of those Colonial-inspired foods and recipes can still be enjoyed in Colonial-era buildings in several of the original 13 colonies.
Mount Vernon onion pye cooking demonstration video
Virginia
Virginia still identifies closely with Colonial America, thanks to places like Mount Vernon and Williamsburg. In Williamsburg, historic 18th-century taverns King’s Arms, Shields Tavern and Christiana Campbell’s continue that tradition with menus inspired by period recipes and ingredients. Colonial Williamsburg Executive Chef Stephen Perkins says visitors aren’t simply eating lunch or dinner: “When you taste a dish, you are indeed tasting the foods enjoyed and eaten by our forefathers. These are the foods that built America.” Popular dishes include Onion Pye, Stewed Beef and Bread Pudding. Nearby, Mount Vernon preserves culinary history through recipes adapted from cookbooks used by Martha Washington, while Michie Tavern (circa 1784) in Charlottesville keeps Southern staples with Colonial roots, like Green Beans With Country Ham, on the table.
Gingerbread
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Pennsylvania
Like America this year, the Dobbin House Tavern in Gettysburg celebrates 250 years. Inside its 1776 stone walls, it serves Colonial-inspired dishes, including King’s Onion Soup, Roast Duck Adams County, Colonial Gingerbread and Apple Pye. Owner Jackie White says many Colonial diners ate foods similar to what people enjoy today, noting that the tavern’s menu draws inspiration from Colonial American cuisine with some European influences and is adapted to modern cooking methods. In Gwynedd, just north of Philadelphia, the historic William Penn Inn serves hearty fare, such William Penn’s Snapper (turtle) Soup, Sauteed Calves’ Liver and Blackberry-Barbecued Pork Loin Chops. Its signature food, however, is the zucchini bread made from a recipe traced back to Letitia Penn, William Penn’s daughter.
Salem Cross Inn in Westbrookfield video
Massachusetts
In Massachusetts, Colonial foodways became lasting New England traditions. Witness the options at Longfellow’s Wayside Inn in Sudbury, which includes baked Indian pudding—one of America’s oldest desserts and representative of a blend of Old World cooking traditions and Indigenous cornmeal. The inn dates to 1686 and later inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Tales of a Wayside Inn.” At Salem Cross Inn in West Brookfield, history comes with hands-on fun during the Fireside Feasts, available November through April, when prime rib turns on a 1700s-era roasting jack and guests help make seafood chowder in an antique cauldron. Martha Salem, a member of the family who owns the property, says many of these dishes and activities are true to Colonial times.
Baked beans sweetened with molasses.
Connecticut
Just as Dobbin House Tavern dates to 1776, so does the Griswold Inn in Essex, making it one of the country’s longest-running inns and restaurants. Historic traditions extend to seasonal experiences like the Holiday Bill of Fare, when the menu includes seasonal game dishes alongside longstanding house favorites served by costumed waitstaff. When they’re available, try the Classic Chicken Pot Pie or Grilled Pork and Molasses Baked Beans.
Littleneck Clams
Rhode Island
Up and down the Eastern Seaboard, seafood was a mainstay of Colonial meals. The White Horse Tavern, America’s oldest operating tavern (circa 1673), in Newport, celebrates that through its raw bar menu that still draws from Narragansett Bay. Diners praise the littleneck clams, oysters, crab and shrimp.
Chicken Pot Pie
New York
The oldest building in Manhattan, Fraunces Tavern offers a chance to dine inside Revolutionary history itself. Built in 1719 and later operated by Samuel Fraunces, the tavern became a gathering place for Patriot activity and is remembered as the site where George Washington bid farewell to his officers following the Revolutionary War. While today’s menu leans toward modern tavern fare, a historical connection can be made to the Slow Roasted Chicken Pot Pie, whose predecessor was one of Washington’s favorites here.
If visiting New York City, check out the American Colonial History in New York Private Walking Tour—the tour includes a stop by Faunces Tavern.
Shepherd’s Pie
Delaware
Housed in a building dating to 1674 in historic New Castle, Jessop’s Tavern showcases a menu inspired by the English, Dutch, Swedish and Belgian influences that arrived along the Delaware River. Shepherd’s Pie, award-winning Fish & Chips and a selection of Oven-Baked Pot Pies, alongside a Swedish meatloaf and Dutch pot roast, get mouths watering. The restaurant proclaims that its “kitchen strives to maintain authenticity in our Bill of Fare.”
Celebrate America’s 250th Birthday in style by renting a car for your next culinary adventure. With added value on Hertz rentals through AAA, you can spend more on unique dining experiences. AAA Members save up to 20% off the base rate, get free additional drivers, free use of a child safety seat and other valuable savings that can extend your road trip budget. Learn more at AAA.com/CarRental
Yorkshire Pudding
New Hampshire
At The Puddle Dock in Portsmouth, Colonial cuisine gets a modern interpretation rooted. Located on the grounds of the historic Strawbery Banke Museum, the restaurant—turning five this year—draws inspiration from early New England food traditions. Owner Ryan Lent says Colonial cooking was highly regional and relied on local ingredients, and his food stays true to those facts. Recipes often come from historic cookbooks, inspiring dishes such as Yorkshire pudding and hoe cakes, while George Washington’s favorite dessert, posset, receives a modern spin with key limes. Around the Fourth of July, diners can even sample Thomas Jefferson’s recipe for what the restaurant calls Monticello Maccaroni & Cheese.
Sweet Potato Pie
But What About the Other Colonies?
While New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia were part of the original 13 colonies, Colonial-era buildings housing restaurants that serve Colonial-inspired menus are hard to find. Yes, diners can appreciate some of the same ingredients, now prepared for contemporary palates in modern spaces, but few restaurants lean into actual historical dishes. In the Southern states, many of the buildings were lost to fires or war. Nevertheless, the recipes and ingredients survived, morphing into what’s known today as Southern cooking. Its rice, seafood, greens and sweet potato traditions carry Indigenous, African and European influences, now found in the many restaurants serving Southern fare throughout the region.
While recipes may evolve, menus may change and buildings may crumble, these historic taverns and inns show that many of the ingredients, traditions and flavors that shaped Colonial America never disappeared. The cuisine of the 1700s and early 1800s isn’t confined to museums and historical cookbooks; in some places, travelers can actually bite into history.
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