Italian waiter's polite horror at Olive Garden goes viral

Sometimes the funniest cultural clashes happen over a plate of food.

TikToker Gabby Donahue captured the moment her Boston Irish father showed an Italian waiter a photo of Olive Garden's chicken parmesan, hoping to order it at their restaurant. The waiter's confused expression told the whole story before he even spoke.

"Only in the States," the waiter said, studying the image. "It doesn't exist in Italy."

The father couldn't believe his ears. The waiter tried making sense of the breaded chicken breast smothered in cheese and sauce. He held his chin thoughtfully before delivering his verdict: "No. That's horrible."

The video racked up over 7 million views, with commenters loving every second of the polite disaster. "'No, that looks good' while looking completely disgusted was the most Italian reaction ever," one viewer wrote. Another added, "Bro remembered halfway through his disgust that he's at work."

The confusion makes perfect sense. Chicken parmesan wasn't actually invented in Italy at all. According to food historians, Italian immigrants created it in America, adapting the traditional eggplant parmigiana they knew from home.

In the Old World, chicken wasn't widely available or affordable. When Italians arrived in America and found chicken plentiful, they swapped it in for eggplant, creating an entirely new dish that became a staple of Italian-American cuisine.

Sunny's Take

This moment perfectly captures what makes American food culture special. We take inspiration from around the world and make it our own, creating something new in the process.

Italian-born food influencer Pasquale Sciarappa, who lives in America, celebrates these adaptations. "It was born in immigrant kitchens, from people who left Italy, landed in the U.S., and made do with what they had," he explains. They recreated comfort from memory using what was available.

The same thing happened with chimichangas (Arizona, not Mexico), Crab Rangoon (San Francisco, not China), and spaghetti and meatballs (American, not Italian). Each dish tells a story of people making a new home while honoring their heritage.

The waiter may have walked away shaking his head, but the father promised to mail him some Olive Garden chicken parmesan anyway. That's the kind of food diplomacy the world needs more of.