Final summer time, for one night time solely, Akron, Ohio’s minor league baseball crew, the RubberDucks, rebranded because the Akron White French. It was an in-joke for Akronites—one which many of the nation would not get. “White French continues to be just about particular to Akron,” says chef Vinnie Cimino, who serves the creamy, mayonnaise-based salad dressing at his Cleveland restaurant, Cordelia.

Cimino lives in Akron, his hometown, and commutes forty-five minutes to the restaurant. That is additional than white French normally travels. “Now we have plenty of Akron of us who come as much as Cleveland, and so they’re so excited to see white French on the menu,” he says. “I do not know if anyone else in Cleveland has it.”

As a local Ohioan from one other a part of the state, I might by no means had it till I ordered the signature “overdressed greens,” a pizza parlor–impressed salad, at Cordelia final yr. Curious, I known as Cimino lately to study extra.

“It is the perfect freaking dressing there may be,” Cimino informed me. He shared the essential constructing blocks: mayonnaise, sugar (typically heaps), vinegar (normally white), onions, garlic, white pepper, and salt. Assume souped-up buttermilk dressing, or ranch with no herbs and extra sugar. He additionally recommended I discuss to Ken Stewart, a former boss of his who owns three eponymous eating places in Akron.

Stewart did not create the dressing, however he is completed as a lot as anybody to popularize it over the previous thirty years. After I obtained him on the cellphone, he gave me a quick historical past, as he understood it.

In response to Stewart and a long time of newspaper archives, it began with Stouffer’s—form of. The long-closed Stouffer’s restaurant chain, based in Cleveland and finest identified for the frozen meals it left behind, was the primary to serve a model of white vinaigrette in northeastern Ohio. “It was fabulous,” Stewart says. “No person right here had heard of white French in any other case.”

However the Stouffer’s recipe, which has been revealed many occasions, is just not Akron-style white French as we all know it immediately. Like different midcentury vinaigrette recipes, it is a candy French dressing stabilized with cornstarch. It is “white” as a result of it is tomato-free and light-weight on the paprika.

When Stewart purchased Foley’s Restaurant, which then grew to become Ken Stewart’s, in 1990, it got here with a recipe for a brand new type of white French—seemingly impressed by Stouffer’s, however with a mayonnaise base. “Harry Foley stated, ‘Look, I’ve obtained this fabulous dressing and I will provide the recipe for it,'” Stewart says. “Numerous individuals have tried to duplicate it since. They’ve come shut, however no cigar. It is a good stability between candy and acidic. And there is onion and a contact of garlic in it. There is a contact of white pepper. There are a pair different little elements that I select to not give out.”

Whereas researching the dressing, I got here throughout a four-year-old touch upon a white French recipe from a “Mike Sicilain” who stated he was a sous chef at Foley’s. He wrote that Foley’s chef Charles Schaeffer created immediately’s white French, and that he—Sicilain—took it to Papa Joe’s, one other native establishment identified for its model, when he began working there in 1988. I couldn’t verify that, nevertheless it aligns with Stewart’s story.

In any case, for those who have a look at newspaper protection, it looks like Akron’s appreciation for white French actually took off within the Ken Stewart period. By 2003, when then Beacon-Journal meals author Jane Snow got here up with a Ken Stewart’s copycat recipe, it was a beloved style of the town, like sauerkraut balls. (Snow’s recipe has change into one of many newspaper’s most requested.) “Individuals are loopy about these items,” Snow wrote.

Now, at Cordelia, diners are going loopy for it once more. In fact, Cimino’s white French is not only a copy-and-paste. The chef, a 2025 James Beard finalist and one in every of Meals & Wine’s Finest New Cooks, has his personal take: “It begins with the perfect merchandise out there to us,” he says. “After they’re in season, we use sweet onions, that are extra-sweet. In any other case, we use the perfect candy onions we are able to discover. We use natural garlic from Hudson, Ohio. We use Duke’s mayonnaise, which has a bit of further vinegar brightness. And we use house-made apple cider vinegar, not white. Ours additionally has a bit of little bit of Bertman Ball Park Mustard,” a Cleveland basic.

With some steerage from Cimino, I got here up with my very own model. Like its inspiration, it has a twangy, sweet-tart taste backed by a recent allium punch and heat notes of mustard and white pepper. (One lesson I realized in testing: Do not skip the in a single day relaxation. These flavors want time to mellow.)

For Akronites, that is an all-purpose dressing. At Cordelia, it is not simply on the home salad—it is also a base for coleslaw and different creamy deli-case “salads.” Cimino additionally recommends folding it right into a Japanese-style potato salad. Stewart says it is a utility participant in his eating places, too: “Now we have clients who use it as a sauce for steak.”