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I think immigration definitely plays a part in it. You say Greek, but I think Middle Eastern cuisine is far more common and easily available. They offer pretty similar fare, but there's simply a lot more recent Middle Eastern migrants out there which makes for a broader and more high quality offering.
I don't think a group needs to reach the level of demographic presence that Mexicans have in California for its cuisine to be recognized and popularized, but you do need enough recent immigrants who go into the gastronomy business (a classic immigrant family business as it provides a good number of jobs that don't require formal qualifications for extended families and has an 'inbuilt' customer base in its ethnic community). That's certainly the case for pretty much all Asian groups in California.
And that's actually why I think Italian food is on its way out in America. There's hardly any recent Italian immigrants and even fewer who're interested in starting restaurants. Most of the recent 'culinary imports' from Italy are trained chefs specifically looking at the fine dining market in the big metros which is of course miles away from the culinary reality of average Americans.
Your average Italian restaurant in an American city today is likely owned by a businessman who bought it from a retiring Italian-American founder 20 years ago who sold it because the kids went off to college and wanted to be something else. That businessman thinks "I'm just going to keep doing what's working, it's not like I know enough about this to innovate", so the place will feed the same ageing boomer crowd the same stuff they've been feeding them for 50 years. It's gonna get by on reputation and nostalgia, but the kids aren't going there. In my millennial circles, "let's go out for Italian" is suggested as often as "let's go out for Polish" i.e. never.
And I'm not counting pizza places..most of the newer ones don't even pretend to be Italian anymore.
The best Italian places in New Jersey are the ratty-looking storefront places that look as though they haven't been redecorated since the 70s. Often they have a dining room in back with good food, and you bring your own wine.
But my ex-husband's former neighbors opened a successful pizza place called "Sal's". They were a couple of brothers with a very Jewish last name.
I think you are probably right that millennials aren't eating the same Italian foods that we older people loved. My daughter is 30, and that seems to be the case. However, she is a vegetarian, and Italian does provide for a lot of choices in that regard. We both love eggplant rollatini, and I've made a spaghetti carbonara version using mushrooms in place of pancetta.
My instinct says Mexican food in a broad sense is by far the most popular 'ethnic' cuisine today in the U.S.
Followed probably by Chinese food. Others like Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Middle Eastern (which is actually a group term for what's usually either Moroccan/Algerian, Lebanese/Syrian or Persian) are growing in popularity.
But in big cities there's certainly room for rarer stuff too. In fact, there's an Uzbek place near where I live which is pretty popular. There's Ethiopian places, heck there's a few Uyghur places which have gotten a decent amount of hype. I haven't been but it's apparently a mix of Chinese and Persian cuisine.
Beyond that there's always going to be reinvented, 'hip' versions of the classics, too. For a while people were obsessed with artisan/gourmet burger joints and hipster pizza places. I think BBQ joints have also been 'rediscovered' and made fit for a younger audience. One of the most popular places near where I live is some kind of revamped 'transformed' classic diner concept aimed at the young, rich folks who live here.
Gave you a rep for the wrong post but this post is informative.
Where are you located ( since you base it on the local observations I assume)
West Coast, East Coast?
And that's actually why I think Italian food is on its way out in America. There's hardly any recent Italian immigrants and even fewer who're interested in starting restaurants. Most of the recent 'culinary imports' from Italy are trained chefs specifically looking at the fine dining market in the big metros which is of course miles away from the culinary reality of average Americans.
Your average Italian restaurant in an American city today is likely owned by a businessman who bought it from a retiring Italian-American founder 20 years ago who sold it because the kids went off to college and wanted to be something else. That businessman thinks "I'm just going to keep doing what's working, it's not like I know enough about this to innovate", so the place will feed the same ageing boomer crowd the same stuff they've been feeding them for 50 years. It's gonna get by on reputation and nostalgia, but the kids aren't going there. In my millennial circles, "let's go out for Italian" is suggested as often as "let's go out for Polish" i.e. never.
And I'm not counting pizza places..most of the newer ones don't even pretend to be Italian anymore.
Our nephew from Munich lived here (California) for two years when he was 18-19. He was disappointed by American pizza and commented on the relative lack of Italian restaurants. He said that the most popular cuisine in Germany is Italian and there are as many Italian restaurants there as Mexican restaurants here. That kind of baffled my kids, who are about the same age, because they can't imagine pizza and pasta being all that exciting. Of course, nephew would say they have never had "the good stuff."
Another example of this is Olivier Salad (Оливье), it was invented by a cook of Belgian/French descent (he was born in Moscow so technically Russian) in Moscow, and then common people tried to reproduce his famous salad with more common ingredients which produced the modern salad. Since then it has spread all around the world (if one is to believe Wikipedia) and is commonly referred to as Russian Salad in places like Latin America and the Middle East.
I check out the recipe online. It seems the modern version of Oliver/Russian salad is dressed in common mayonnaise - "and only faintly resembles Olivier's original creation. "
The original dressing, "was a jealously guarded secret." "the original recipe contained “mogul sauce” a.k.a. “kabul sauce” (along the lines of Worcestershire sauce), manufactured by John Burgess & Son (the brand he reputedly used) and Crosse & Blackwell. " https://www.thefooddictator.com/hirs...2%D1%8C%D0%B5/
If "mayonnaise" is French, John Burgess's Mogul Sauce is English, Russian's version of a dressing should be interesting.
I check out the recipe online. It seems the modern version of Oliver/Russian salad is dressed in common mayonnaise - "and only faintly resembles Olivier's original creation. "
The original dressing, "was a jealously guarded secret." "the original recipe contained “mogul sauce” a.k.a. “kabul sauce” (along the lines of Worcestershire sauce), manufactured by John Burgess & Son (the brand he reputedly used) and Crosse & Blackwell. " https://www.thefooddictator.com/hirs...2%D1%8C%D0%B5/
If "mayonnaise" is French, John Burgess's Mogul Sauce is English, Russian's version of a dressing should be interesting.
That's it!!!)))
See, that salad is a must thing kinda in Russia for any celebration ( back in Soviet times including.)
But Russian mayo is different from American mayo ( at least was back then, and a lot of Soviet commercial recipes/food standards were still kept from pre-Soviet times)))
So if I could place a finger on a difference between Russian mayo and American one, then the taste of the Worcestershire sauce in it would be the closest thing)))
P.S. Now THIS explains why in my family they were mixing mayo with sour cream when making this salad))) ( Every family has its own recipe)
So when I mixed AMERICAN mayo with sour cream for this salad, (following the habit) it was a dud)))
I check out the recipe online. It seems the modern version of Oliver/Russian salad is dressed in common mayonnaise - "and only faintly resembles Olivier's original creation. "
The original dressing, "was a jealously guarded secret." "the original recipe contained “mogul sauce” a.k.a. “kabul sauce” (along the lines of Worcestershire sauce), manufactured by John Burgess & Son (the brand he reputedly used) and Crosse & Blackwell. " https://www.thefooddictator.com/hirs...2%D1%8C%D0%B5/
If "mayonnaise" is French, John Burgess's Mogul Sauce is English, Russian's version of a dressing should be interesting.
Yeah the salad uses Mayonnaise, the original dressing nobody knows, but essentially was mayonnaise. As far as other salads go Mayonnaise or Sour Cream are mostly used or a for something lighter then just oil, salt and black pepper with a squeeze of lemon or vinegar, at least that’s the typical dressing my mom used.
Yeah the salad uses Mayonnaise, the original dressing nobody knows, but essentially was mayonnaise. As far as other salads go Mayonnaise or Sour Cream are mostly used or a for something lighter then just oil, salt and black pepper with a squeeze of lemon or vinegar, at least that’s the typical dressing my mom used.
See, with ORIGINAL Russian mayo you wouldn't need this at all.
(My folks were trying to tone it down ( the vinegar/spice) with sour cream back in the day - that was the reason I'm realizing by now, thanks to Orbiter.)
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but this post is informative. 
