CHICAGO — The year is 1950, and Conrad “Nicky” Hilton Jr. — of Hilton hotel fame and megafortune — is seated at a table at Alexander’s, a white-tablecloth steakhouse on 63rd Street in Woodlawn. It’s his first time there, and he’s waiting for his salad. When it arrives, Hilton looks down at the plate of chopped lettuce tossed in the eatery’s house-made creamy garlic dressing. “He took a bite and said, ‘Oh my God, what is in my mouth?’” said Darice Alexander Lovell, daughter of Peter Alexander, the restaurant’s co-owner. “He thought it was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted and asked to buy a jar of it.” Hilton wanted his fiancée, a rising actress named Elizabeth Taylor, to try the salad dressing. She did and “went crazy” for it, Lovell told Block Club Chicago. From then on, until the couple separated later that year, Alexander shipped a case of the dressing to Hilton and Taylor’s residence once a month, Lovell said. Hotel heir Conrad “Nicky” Hilton, Jr. and Hollywood starlet Elizabeth Taylor fell in love with creamy garlic dressing at Alexander’s on 63rd Street in Woodlawn, according to the daughter of the restaurant’s co-owner. Credit: Wikimedia Commons Just as Taylor has remained a cultural icon synonymous with old Hollywood glamour, so has creamy garlic dressing served as a vestige of the days when smoke-filled, wood-paneled steakhouses with green vinyl booths ruled Chicago’s dining scene. Today, current and former Chicagoans scour the internet for creamy garlic dressing recipes, lamenting the difficulty in replicating it. But for those in the know, some old-school restaurants and neighborhood pizzerias still serve it. What’s in creamy garlic dressing, and why is it a Chicago food? It depends on who you ask. But fans agree: There’s nothing else quite like it. ## A Secret Recipe With Many Versions Creamy garlic dressing usually consists of mayonnaise and/or sour cream as the base, plus garlic and lemon juice or vinegar — but there is much variation. Some recipes use plain yogurt, buttermilk or cottage cheese instead of sour cream. Some include garlic powder, while others call for chopped garlic or a roasted garlic puree. Many versions include vinegar — white wine, apple cider or another variety — but some don’t use vinegar at all; same goes for lemon juice. Other recipes add hot sauce or another spicy element, and others zhuzh it up with Worcestershire sauce or grated Parmesan. One oft-cited recipe floating around the internet that purports to be from Alexander’s Steakhouse makes Lovell wince. While she refuses to divulge her family recipe, she said it contains no sour cream, as the online recipe does. “I will never release the recipe,” Lovell said — except to her daughter, maybe. The recipe for the creamy garlic dressing at Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder in Lincoln Park is kept under lock and key. Credit: Provided/Omar Dorado The exact ingredients of Chicago-style creamy garlic dressing are under lock and key, literally, at Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder, 2121 N. Clark St. Lisa Mongiat only learned of the recipe when she took over the Lincoln Park restaurant last year. Recipes are stored “in a confidential envelope … in a locked room,” Mongiat said. “The manager that was retiring … handed me a big manila envelope one day and on it, it said ‘Confidential.’ “She said, ‘This is the recipe, and we keep them under lock and key, and you don’t want to take it home, and don’t ever show it to anybody.’” The pizzeria’s dressing has a sour cream base. The other ingredients are only known by Mongiat, longtime manager Martin Galindo and a second manager. “He’s more than a cook,” Mongiat said of Galindo, a 35-year veteran at Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder. “He has all the guarded secrets of Chicago pizza. … He’s worth a lot of money.” Creamy garlic dressing is served with a wedge salad at Candlelite, 7452 N. Western Ave., in West Ridge on Feb. 3, 2026. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago ## Chicago Gets Garlicky The city’s obsession with this thick, pungent topping began in the ’50s, though it was being served in restaurants as early as the ’20s, according to Lovell and old newspaper accounts. Patrick Fowler, owner of Candlelite, 7452 N. Western Ave. in West Ridge, said his restaurant’s version was created by a longtime chef and goes back “as far as anyone knows,” possibly to when the restaurant opened in 1950. One newspaper mention of “creamy garlic dressing” was for a “$5 Favorite Recipe” offered by the Tribune on Sept. 11, 1958. In the early 1960s, a popular iteration of the dressing that included cheese was making the rounds in the form of a seasoning packet to which cooks could add oil, vinegar and water. Ruth Ellen Church, a Tribune food editor who wrote columns under the name Mary Meade, began featuring the dressing frequently in her weekly menus by 1964. Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder began serving its version when it opened in 1972. An article in the Southtown Star in the early ’80s called Alexander’s salad dressing “exceptional.” “Just as it is on South 79th Street, the … homemade house dressing will still mystify diners who try to deduce its ingredients,” according to the article. Alexander’s Steak House and Cocktail Lounge, 3010 E. 79th St., was owned of several steakhouses run by Greek restaurateur brothers George, Nicholas and Peter Alexander. Credit: Provided/Darice Alexander Lovell ## One Family’s Legacy A history of creamy garlic dressing in Chicago would be incomplete without mention of Alexander’s Steak House, owned by brothers George, Nicholas and Peter Alexander, who immigrated from Greece around 1920, said Lovell, Peter Alexander’s daughter. From a small luncheonette in the Palmolive building Downtown, the trio expanded to steak houses on 63rd Street near the University of Chicago and at 3010 E. 79th St. in South Shore. Alexander’s on 79th Street showcased a huge, “glorious” wood bar, green leather booths, white linens and chandeliers, Lovell said. It attracted the likes of then-Mayor Richard J. Daley and family, Catholic cardinals, Olympic champions, actors and academics. Lovell’s family celebrated proms and first communions there. She remembers when her father closed the restaurant so they could watch the Apollo 8 lunar mission piloted by her future father-in-law, Capt. James Lovell. Peter Alexander of Alexander’s Steak House, which had locations on 63rd and 79th streets. Credit: Provided/Darice Alexander Lovell A few years after Peter Alexander came to Chicago, he started to develop his version of creamy garlic dressing, Lovell said. He would spend hours each Wednesday mixing it up, then come home reeking of garlic, his daughter said. His less-sweet alternative became a smash hit, and the restaurant began selling it to specialty shops like Twin Liquors and Stop and Shop and eventually to customers like Hilton and Taylor. “This was a man, and his brothers as well, [who] worked very hard and came here with literally nothing,” Lovell said. “His hard work, his creativity, his love of food, his love of people, his love of us, his love of the Lord, his love of this country … just all of it comes together when somebody” mentions the dressing. ## Battle Of The Bottles Bottled creamy garlic dressing began hitting grocery store shelves across Chicago in the 1970s, the height of its commercial popularity. A 1972 ad for the popular Bonique dressing described it as a “gentle hint of garlic blended in a rich creamy” dressing, “just the right touch for saucy salads — even on ribs, steaks [and] chops.” Later that year, Kraft took out a full-page ad in the Tribune, showcasing its version of the shelf-stable product, noting that it “pours on thick and smooth” and is “pungent with natural garlic flavor.” The ad contained a mail-in offer for reimbursement of a 35-cent bottle of the dressing. Wishbone followed up in 1973 with its take on the bottled dressing and a large ad and coupon in the Tribune, promising “the spunkiest flavor you ever tasted.” By 1978, two other contenders, Corkette and Henri’s, joined the race. In 1989, Marie’s began selling its version, and in the ’90s came Zesty. Creamy garlic dressing is served with food like pizza, salad and buffalo chicken wings at Candlelite, 7452 N. Western Ave., in West Ridge on Feb. 3, 2026. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago ## Longing For A Taste For decades, creamy garlic dressing was a staple at Greek, Italian and steakhouse-type restaurants in Chicago, often served over iceberg lettuce, either chopped or in wedges. By the ’90s and 2000s, the dressing was almost completely symbolic of a bygone dining era, but that didn’t mean diners who grew up on it were ready to let go. Before The Branding Iron in Oak Lawn closed in 1988, manager Jim Sullivan told the Tribune that customers “begged” him for the recipe. In 2009, he was still getting requests for it. People have been reminiscing about and discussing creamy garlic dressing in culinary chat sites going back 20 years. In 2014, a reader told the Tribune that Alexander’s creamy garlic dressing was one of the foods she missed most. At Candlelite and Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder, creamy garlic dressing remains the most popular salad topping, the owners said. Servers at Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder walk around offering free refills of the dressing since people also like to use it on sandwiches and bread. At Candlelite, the dressing is an “extremely popular” accompaniment to wings and the restaurant’s cracker-style thin-crust pizzas, Fowler said. “Sure, people like other dressings in Chicago, but there is something about the recipe and how it goes with our food that makes it a favorite,” Fowler said. “Chicagoans have always had unique food fixations.” Part of creamy garlic dressing’s magic is that it’s made fresh and has to be eaten fresh, Mongiat said. “You can’t put it on your shelf for weeks at a time, and the freshness makes it much more flavorful,” she said. For Lovell, creamy salad dressing represents her journey from Alexander’s that has come full circle. She has opened restaurants with her husband over the years in suburban Highwood and Lake Forest. Like her dad, she works all day on Wednesdays and guards her recipes with her life. Neighbors who once lived in South Shore ended up on the North Shore, so it’s not uncommon to cross paths with former Alexander’s customers who knew her as a child, Lovell said. Some customers ask why she sells a creamy garlic dressing with the name “Alexander” attached, to which she proudly explains her family’s history. Thinking back on her father, who she still fondly calls “daddy” and “baba,” Lovell said the Alexanders’ creamy garlic dressing is ultimately an immigrant success story. “To think that … this little guy comes from Greece, and it’s 2026, and we’re talking about his salad dressing,” she said. Old-school restaurants like Vito and Nick’s Pizzeria, 8433 S. Pulaski Road in Ashburn, have creamy garlic dressing on the menu. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago ## Where To Buy Creamy Garlic Dressing Today, you can get a version of the Alexanders’ famous dressing at Jay Lovell’s restaurant in Highwood, owned by Lovell and her husband. They use it on salads and sell it to take home. Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder sells its dressing online and at the restaurant for $15 a jar, though, depending on the season, it tends to sell out. The pizzeria also ships orders across the country. The dressing comes on the side of every salad on the menu. On average, Galindo makes 25-40 gallons of the dressing from scratch every week, Mongiat said. During the 2025 holiday season, demand for the dressing was so high, Galindo had to come in on his day off, rush to nearby markets for fresh ingredients and start pumping out more batches. “People just … love it,” Mongiat said. “I think probably because you really can’t get it anywhere … . It is scarce.” Candlelite gets frequent requests from customers to take home the dressing, which is made in-house according to the original recipe with “certain enhancements” added over the years, Fowler said. Candlelite offers it for sale for $10 a bottle for $1 for a small cup. Other restaurants that serve it: * Carson’s Ribs, 465 E. Illinois St. in Streeterville, uses “homemade dressings from 80-year-old family recipes.” * Ignotz Ristorante, 2421 S. Oakley Ave., an Italian restaurant in the Heart of Italy neighborhood. * Fox’s Restaurant & Pub, 9956 S. Western Ave. * Pequod’s Pizza, 2207 N. Clybourn Ave. in Lincoln Park. * Aurelio’s Pizza, 18162 Harwood Ave. in suburban Homewood, a favorite of Chicago’s own Pope Leo XIV. * Vito & Nick’s Pizzeria, 8433 S. Pulaski Road in Ashburn, a family pizza joint open since 1920. * Void, 2937 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Logan Square, whose chef told the Tribune in 2025 that its wedge salad was an homage to Chicago’s old-school Italian-American restaurants when you’d “always get the creamy garlic dressing.” If you want to try shelf-stable grocery store versions, Marie’s creamy garlic dressing can be found at Jewel and Tony’s Fresh Market. Olive Garden’s bottled version is available at most big-box grocery stores. Kraft still makes a creamy garlic dressing but in 3.78-liter jugs. The Marconi brand also makes a creamy garlic dressing, available online or for pickup — in Iowa. ## Want To Make Your Own? Here Are 5 Creamy Garlic Dressing Recipes The “$5 Favorite Recipe” offered by the Tribune on Sept. 11, 1958, was submitted by Ruth Hauser of 1620 N. Laramie Ave. It was described by the paper as “one of the best … we’ve ever tasted.” * 1 egg * 1½ teaspoons salt * 1 small garlic clove * ¼ cup crumbled blue cheese * ¼ cup wine vinegar * 1 cup salad oil Blend egg, salt, garlic and cheese, beating until smooth. Add in vinegar and oil slowly, beating together until it’s creamy. * * * In 1964, the Tribune’s Mary Meade offered this recipe: * ½ cup vinegar * 1½ cups salad oil * 1½ teaspoons salt * 2 teaspoons sugar * 1 small garlic clove * ½ teaspoon paprika * ½ teaspoon dry mustard * Dash of pepper Blend with an electric mixer until ingredients are fully mixed and smooth. * * * The Tribune published a recipe from the Mark III Restaurant in Skokie in 1976 after several requests from readers: * 2 cups mayo * ⅔ cup sour cream * ⅓ cup milk or half-and-half * 4 tablespoons garlic salt * 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce * Juice from 1 lemon Blend together and place in jar. Let stand in the fridge overnight before serving. * * * In 1991, a recipe for creamy garlic dressing from the Black Steer restaurant appeared in the Sun-Times, submitted by Louise Walker: * 1 cup mayo * 1 cup sour cream * 1 tablespoon garlic powder * ½ teaspoon black pepper * ¼ cup milk Whisk the mayo, sour cream, garlic and pepper together, then slowly add milk; beat together until smooth. * * * A recipe for The Berghoff’s garlic dressing was published in 1994 in a Utah-based newspaper after a reader from Michigan requested it: * 2 cups mayo * 14 ounces sour cream * 1½ teaspoon minced garlic * ½ teaspoon Worchestershire sauce * ½ teaspoon Tabasco * ½ teaspoon sugar Vigorously mix all the ingredients until blended and smooth before chilling. * * * **Support Local News!** **Subscribe to Block Club Chicago, **an independent, 501(c)(3), journalist-run newsroom. Every dime we make funds reporting from Chicago’s neighborhoods. 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