September 28, 2025

Gratuitous Cookies

Complimentary desserts that keep us going back and restore faith in humanity

My mom refers to complimentary desserts delivered at the end of a restaurant meal as “gratuitous cookies”. 

This past week, Mom and I dined out quite a bit, unfortunately after visits to my father in the hospital. He fell last week and broke his right hip, almost in the exact same spot as the left one, which he broke in October of 2019. Apparently his hip bones on x-rays look like mirror images now. Guess you have to stay even. 

He’s OK, home recovering with help from aides, visiting nurses, and at home PT sent by the hospital. I think he expected to be up and hobbling with his walker again in a matter of days (hip is typically the “easy” one), but at 90, the mind is more willing than the body. This will take a minute. 

A day or two after his surgery, after our second meal of the week at El Fish Marisqueria — a familiar spot that’s become one of our family go-tos. The first visit was a delicious oasis in such a frantic week that Mom and I decided to return the next evening. 

For dessert the night before we shared piña colada and hibiscus sorbets. This night (what was it, Wednesday? Thursday? At this point the dates in our stress cycle blur) owner Ariel Lacayo sent over one of their new desserts on the menu, a hybrid of flan, panna cotta, and tres leches cake covered in cassis-soaked roasted figs. It was instantly one of my favorite bites of the year. 

“That’s one of the best gratuitous cookies ever,” Mom declared. 

Since then, my mind has been playing back a reel of complimentary desserts. 

The practice — a good will gesture meant to inspire customer loyalty — dates to mid-20th century chain restaurants, most notably Clifton’s cafeterias in Los Angeles, which had given away hundreds of thousands of birthday cakes before the last location closed in 2018. At some point the restaurant tradition of wait staff singing “Happy Birthday” at the table followed, and then fine dining establishments started bringing the fancy cookie plate. 

One of my earliest memories is dining at Sardi’s in the late 1970s with my family after seeing a musical, could have been Annie or the revival of Oklahoma! (I was still in elementary school, so pretty certain it wasn’t Oh! Calcutta!). It was my mother’s birthday, and when the cake arrived, Tony Orlando — in all his middle part feathered hair and handlebar mustached glory — leapt from an adjacent table and joined in the singing. 

He is one of the first celebrities I remember meeting. It blew my mind! Not because he was a famous person from the television, but because I only then understood that the trio on the show was not Tony, Orlando, and Dawn — the lead is Tony, one singer is Orlando, the other is named Dawn — but variety show host’s full name is Tony Orlando and the backup singers were collectively known as Dawn. 

As an adult, we celebrated occasions at Danny Meyer’s restaurants like Union Square Cafe (the original and the current location) — where their schtick is to drizzle a chocolate greeting on the dessert plate like “Happy birthday, David” — and Gramercy Tavern. Though we haven’t been there for dinner in some time, I have memories of the gratuitous chocolate truffles AND cookies that arrived with the coffee. 

The Mermaid Inn famously has no desserts on the menu, but they always send a cup of chocolate pudding with a piped star of whipped cream alongside a thin, red cellophane fortune fish, The Fortune Teller Magical Fish. Hold it in your palm and whichever way the tail or head curls or flips signifies different feelings: in love, jealousy, indifference, passion. If it doesn’t move at all it’s “tired”. I think there should be one for burnt out — when it’s too stressed out to decide which way to curl anymore. 

Another busy week is on the docket. Thanks to everyone who continues to support this little newsletter. Please tell your friends! May your week go swimmingly.