Burger King, Wendy's Menu Additions Lean Into a Popular Trend

When you're craving good Italian food, you run to... your nearest Burger King? 

It sounds ludicrous but the fast-food industry has been working hard to sell the Bel Paese to those without means to hop on a transatlantic flight or go to a trendy Italian restaurant with seasonal menus. 

On Nov. 14, Burger King of Restaurant Brands International  (QSR) - Get Free Report will launch a new take on the Italian Chicken Sandwich. Launched in 1979, the breaded-chicken-marinara-sauce-and-mozzarella-sauce-on-a-bun creation became a generational favorite before being pulled off the permanent menu in 2014.

The Italian-style sandwich regularly came back for a limited-time only, and now is returning as the Italian BK Royal Crispy Chicken Sandwich. The new differs from the old in two keys ways -- a breaded chicken breast instead of chicken patty and a round, rather than the original long, bun.

Marinara, Mozzarella And Fast Food's Vision Of Italy

While the industry trend of calling anything with marinara and mozzarella "Italian" dates back decades, the last few months of 2022 have brought it back with a vengeance -- Wendy's  (WEN) - Get Free Report is also bringing the Italian Mozzarella Cheeseburger and the Italian Mozzarella Chicken Sandwich to its restaurants starting from Nov. 15.

Although Wendy's claim to promise fans the "opportunity to have a true upscale Italian restaurant experience in the fast food world" was met with some mild online mockery, Wendy's VP of Culinary Innovation John Li said that the menu items stemmed from the emotional connection many Americans have to Italian food.

"Growing up, my best friend was Italian from Buffalo," Li told TheStreet during a press call for journalists. "I loved going into their house for chicken parmesan."

The sandwiches, which come with a piece of fresh mozzarella and a piece of fried mozzarella atop a marinara-slathered beef or chicken patty, also caused some heated debate about where to find the best "Italian-style" fast food.

Similarly to the way that the term "Asian food" is often associated by many only with teriyaki sauce and Orange Chicken and Mexican food is often confused with Tex-Mex, most of the "Italian-style" menus one sees on a wide scale conflates a country with countless regional cooking styles into mozzarella and marinara. 

Fast Food In The U.S. and the Real Italy

Conflation and simplification are not unique to the fast-food industry but stem largely from the way that food prepared by immigrants from regions like Emilia-Romagna with what they had available to them in a new country have come to represent "Italian food" to most Americans.

"Very few things are dredged in sauce or overloaded with cheese," Ali LaRaia, a chef at The Sosta in New York, once told Business Insider of authentic Italian food. "[...] Everything has purpose and nothing is overly indulgent."

Careful preparation using local and seasonal ingredients is not exactly easy to recreate in a mass-scale, fast-food environment. And yet longstanding American love of Italy as both a travel and foodie destination and an immigrant community in the U.S. give it prime marketing appeal in the industry.

"I'm from an immigrant Chinese family and our holidays were spent eating things like Peking duck and dumplings," Li said. "But [chicken parmesan] is still the type of food that rings in the holidays for me during cold days and I still crave it to this day."

In the real Italy, fast food has followed its own tumultuous journey -- a deep connection to its cuisine has led the American pizza chain Domino's  (DPZ) - Get Free Report to leave the country last summer after failing to find a customer base.

Chains which, like McDonald's  (MCD) - Get Free Report and Starbucks  (SBUX) - Get Free Report, succeeded in the country have generally marketed themselves as exotic American food -- although the latter does also tailor to local tastes with desserts like Sundae Frutti di Bosco (berries of the woods) and Nutella burger.