Retro Recipes with Bobby Hicks: Nostalgic Dishes for the Modern Kitchen
In Episode 137 of the Kitchen Confidante Podcast, Liren Baker talks with Bobby Hicks about his unconventional path into professional kitchens, how a pandemic-era hobby turned into a deep dive through a century of food history, and what it took to bring 100 retro recipes back to life for the modern table in his cookbook, Retro Recipes.
On the podcast, I recently chatted with Bobby Hicks, chef, food historian, and author of the new cookbook, Retro Recipes: Vintage Dishes with a Modern Twist. You may recognize him as a contestant on Season 4 of Gordon Ramsay’s Next Level Chef. His debut cookbook, Retro Recipes, contains 100 previously forgotten recipes — like Chicken A La King, Orange Sherbert, and even Jello Salad — that he has revived for modern tastes. Bobby revisits the dishes that filled family tables throughout much of the 20th century with updated techniques, clear instructions, and plenty of historical context. Through his unique blend of culinary expertise and humor, Bobby explores why these recipes were so popular in their time and what they can still teach us today.
In this episode, we chat about his unconventional path into professional kitchens, how a pandemic-era hobby turned into a deep dive through a century of food history, and what it actually took to bring 100 retro recipes back to life for the modern table.
Listen to the full episode or keep reading for some of the highlights from our conversation.
How Did You Get Started Cooking?
I grew up in Orlando, Florida, and didn’t discover my passion for food until later in life. When my best friend at the time, Keiko — who is now my partner — wanted to move to New York City, that gave me the push I needed to take things more seriously. In New York, we surrounded ourselves with people who were smarter and more driven than we were, which pushed me to improve.
I was first exposed to working in a kitchen while I was working as a room server at the SoHo Grand Hotel. I would talk to the cooks and ask them questions about the food. One day, the executive chef approached me and said I should be asking him the questions instead. I used that as an opportunity to throw myself into the world of cooking and learn from him. We started doing cross-training, and I would work as a server from 5 am to 2 pm, then change into my kitchen whites and work with him from 2:30 pm to 10 pm for about a year and a half. By the end of my time there, I was still just getting familiar with my culinary skills, but that experience fueled my fire to do more.
When I eventually left the SoHo Grand, my mentor brought me on at SoHo House, where I ran the events team. That’s where I really learned how to be efficient and push through the hard parts. Many people are afraid to take risks or try something new and fail, but I encourage anyone to go after what they want.
“Failure is the most necessary thing for growth. I’ve been horrible at so many things, but I pushed through to the point where I got everything I wanted out of it, and it got more interesting and exciting the harder it got.”
Bobby Hicks
Tell Us More About Your Book, Retro Recipes
I had this dream of taking my video production background and recreating old-style British cooking videos from the 1950s and ’60s in my own nerdy way. It started as a small thing, and grew into a full hyperfixation as I realized how much wonderful history there was to uncover. People tend to laugh at these strange, old dishes like Jello Salad instead of appreciating them for what they actually were — products of scarcity, limited technology, and people just trying to feed their families.
Narrowing an entire century of food history down to 100 recipes for this book was genuinely difficult. I tried to preserve the integrity of each dish while modernizing the actual recipe — more salt, more fat, more texture — to make them taste the way I believe they were originally meant to. A lot of these recipes were written by home cooks without formal culinary training, often passed down orally through generations, written in the context of nearly two decades of food scarcity. So, there was a lot of course-correcting involved in preserving their integrity but bringing these dishes to their full potential.
Beyond the recipes themselves, the book also teaches foundational cooking skills, so readers can take what they learn and apply it to a wide range of dishes — adapting, pivoting, and improving as they go.
And if you make anything from this book, you must make the Butterscotch Pudding. It is pure deliciousness.
Retro Recipes: Vintage Dishes with a Modern Twist by Bobby Hicks (Countryman Press, 2026).
Learn more
Listen to the full podcast episode with Bobby. You can learn more on his website, retrorecipeskitchen.com, and follow him on Instagram @retrorecipeskitchen.
Comments
COOKBOOK
What a fun trip down memory lane, these nostalgic dishes are exactly the kind of comfort food I grew up with. Love that you updated them for the modern kitchen without losing the charm. Definitely trying the retro casserole this weekend!