Yorkshire Pudding: A Surprising Star

Plump, golden brown, and a marvel of construction: for happy eaters around the world, roast beef wouldn’t be complete without Yorkshire Pudding.

Lawry’s The Prime Rib, Dallas, cook Juan Flores with Yorkshires fresh from the oven. Cook Juan Flores with Yorkshires fresh from the oven at Lawry’s The Prime Rib, Dallas. Our guests like the pudding so much, they consume more than 200,000 servings of it a year.

CONSIDER THE YORKSHIRE PUDDING: plump and golden brown, it nestles in its very own pan next to your plate of prime rib. Spear a bit of it with your fork, and use it to sop up the rich juices of the meat. A marvel of construction, it becomes meltingly tender, yet doesn’t fall apart until you get it safely to your waiting mouth.

Some even tell us it’s why they come to Lawry’s

For millions of happy eaters around the world, roast beef wouldn’t be complete without a Yorkshire by its side. The first known recipe for the iconic British dish, created in Yorkshire, England, was published in 1737 in a book entitled The Whole Duty of a Woman. The pudding was brought to America’s shores by early English settlers.

In our restaurants, a surprisingly large number of guests consider it their favorite part of our classic prime rib meal. Some even tell us it’s why they come to Lawry’s.

One young man, isolated at a college far away from any of our restaurants, e-mailed to tell us he’d begun dreaming of our Yorkshire pudding almost every night. Another guest, a former Dallasite now living in Houston, wrote to say that when she was pregnant, she craved Lawry’s The Prime Rib, Dallas’, Yorkshires so fervently that her doting husband rented a private jet to take her there.

When the original Lawry’s The Prime Rib opened in Beverly Hills in 1938, Yorkshire pudding wasn’t on the menu. It wasn’t until the 1950s that Richard N. Frank approached his father, Lawry’s founder Lawrence Frank, with the idea of adding it.

Their favorite part of our classic prime rib meal

Lawrence, who had tasted his first Yorkshire on a trip to England, didn’t think much of it and opposed the idea, calling the pudding “a wet, sloppy mess.” Richard thought that if it was cooked right, the dish could win Lawrence’s approval, so he set our chefs to work.

After months of experimenting, the recipe was perfected. Far lighter than the English version, delicately crisp on the outside and airily soft inside, baked in individual skillets and served fresh from the oven, Lawrence deemed it good enough to have pride of place next to our prime rib. Today, Yorkshires are served in all of our fine-dining restaurants in the U.S. and internationally.

In 2007, Richard N.’s son, Richard R. Frank, re-engineered how we bake our Yorkshires by inventing a pan that allows us to make 11 individual puddings at once, enabling us to get them to full tables of guests all at the same time, all at their peak of flavor and all piping hot from the oven.

Delicately crisp on the outside and airily soft inside

If you’re among the many fans of the Yorkshire, you’ll be pleased to know there is an actual, annual National Yorkshire Pudding Day, celebrated in the U.S. this year on October 13. (In England, Yorkshire Pudding Day is the first Sunday of every February.) Join us at Lawry’s The Prime Rib, the Five Crowns or the Tam O’Shanter and raise a forkful in celebration.