I can’t think of any restaurants in my area that I’d class as multi-ethnic in their food. Say Italian and Indian. Or Indonesian and Ethiopian.
Do you know of any such places? Do they work? Are both (or more) cuisines successful? Or is it just a mish-mash that never really works for anyone?
There are some popular combos in NYC - Japanese/Italian and Indian/Chinese, for example. How good they are depends on how good they are. I don’t think you’ll find many cuisines that are entirely free of the influence of others.
We had reservations for a Chinese/Japanese/Peruvian restaurant in D.C. a few years ago, a José Andrés vehicle. I came down with food poisoning at a bar we went to beforehand for HH, so we never made it 
In the hands of the right person anything can be successful. Even “fusion.”
In Mumbai, the most ubiquitous multi-ethnic restaurants are what I’d call Udipi-style South Indian vegetarian spots that also serve (Indian) Chinese and Punjabi / North Indian. Three separate menus within a single menu, not fusion.
We ordered from a South Indian place today that serves only 5 things — idlis, pizza (a very specific indian style), chinese rice + noodles (I have never eaten this, almost ordered it just to see), pav bhaji, and fruit juice. That’s all. No crossover / fusion, just those things and they are famous for all of them. (We got the idlis, which are a house favorite.)
Indian Chinese is not multi-ethnic, it’s a separate cuisine. Peruvian-Japanese is the same, as also Japanese-Italian.
Chino-Latino, however, has 2 separate menus within a menu, and used to be easy to find in NYC.
Another two-menu shtick that started at some point in NYC was cheap takeout Chinese places adding inexpensive sushi to the menu — nothing fancy, just the standard rolls and combinations.
There’s a place in Brooklyn that was serving Korean and something else — not together, just two small but separate selections. I can’t recall the name or the other cuisine right now.
Many of the multi ethnic cuisines are like Chinese American cuisine, adapted to different culture, tastes and traditions when Chinese sojourners traveled overseas….and over time becomes a specific cuisine. Now there’s even second wave Cantonese restaurants in the US. Four Kings in SF gets a lot of press as an example, 3rd to 5th generation Chinese Americans taking new approaches. My mother’s family owned and ran a Chinese takeout in Chicago….and there’s even Chicago specific ways of making certain things…like tomato beef, or Chicago fried noodles (.10c a bag for fried noodled back in the day) pre Chung King canned stuff.
This article explains the process, as it happened in Mexicali, MX. In LA there’s a few places, that print trilingual menus….and it increases business.
Tracy Chang’s Pagu in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is Spanish-Japanese tapas and several times a James Beard semi-finalist. We haven’t been since the pandemic, but really enjoyed it the few times we went before. We loved the fried oysters on squid ink bao…no longer on the menu that I just checked. The Spanish potato tortilla was one of the best I’ve ever had, including in Spain. Everything was wonderful and reasonably priced.
She also offers take out food through the Pagu shop, including her own chile crisp, hot sauce, pan de cristal, etc.
Seems like Thai/Chinese is fairly common here in SoCal, but that’s maybe not truly multi-ethnic.
Maybe 50+ years ago my grandfather lived in Hemet, CA and I remember a restaurant there that featured prime rib and Chinese dishes. Most likely a way to stay in business back then.
BITD, we’d hit Woey Loy Goey on Jackson St in SF Chinatown after the bars closed.
Not for Chinese food, but for their American dinner plates. Prime Rib, Roast Pork and Curry Lamb (goat) on a plate of white rice with gravy and boiled cabbage. Our waiter would have a pot of Cold Tea (Budweiser in tea pot) on our table as soon as he sees/hear us descend the stairs.
Oh, and there was a Thai-Mexican collab in the city, but that happened before we were there.
I could see that working spectacularly well, what with two of the hotter cuisines on the planet combining forces 
Serving both ethnic cuisine and American fare is a tradition of immigrants. Prime Rib served at Chinese American restaurants is a tradition that goes back 100 years. My grandfather took my dad to Jackson Cafe in SF, and he took me there…always got the prime rib, full order. There’s a whole list of long gone places like Uncle’s….Pork Chop House (don’t recall the Chinese name).
More recently I saw an Ethiopian restaurant serving traditional fare and American standards. Basically it’s going after two markets to help ensure survival.
Oh, I thought you were solely talking of restaurants that combine different cuisines within dishes.
I’ve seen plenty of those both in Berlin and stateside, offering Viet, Thai, Sushi, and usually Chinese-American dishes at the same place.
I usually avoid those 
New Lun Ting Cafe, still on Jackson.
You’d be shocked at the prices these days. Had prime rib dinner a year ago, satisfying.
I think you are refering to SYKO in Windsor Terrace. Ive have some of their food but not enough to opine.
Chino Latino restos do/did have some separate menu items but I think that the Chinese cooks also successfully imported some chinese cooking ways and expertise into the latin cuisines, lightening some dishes. We used to go on Saturdays (typically the day for pernil, with moro rice yuca and garlic sauce, with fried sweet plantains) and order one order of that and one of sopa china especial with a poached egg. A very satisfying meal, ending with pudim diplomatico.
Around here, a lot of Chinese restaurants have added some Thai dishes, with varying success.
There is a Thai/BBQ place we went to pre-covid; the Thai was okay, the ribs were mediocre.
Another place near here was doing steak, crab, seafood boil, Chinese, Japanese, and Thai-- none of them well. It closed fairly quickly.
Diners around here commonly do Italian, Greek, and Mexican, with brief forays into Jewish/German (potato pancakes, matzo ball soup).
There used to be a lot of Cuban-Chinese places in New York City, from people who emigrated after the revolution. I think only one is still there, on the upper west side.
There’s a Lao restaurant near here that also has southern (US) BBQ. I’ve been there once or twice. Both of the cuisines’ dishes were very good.
Thanks, never remember the name, just the nickname and the green tile. I had to think when was the last time I was there, 2019 before the pandemic. I think I got the roast pork…which was okay, gravy was a little odd but I think it was the same.
So how much have things gone up?
It works for the places I revisit.
A lot of Greeks and Italians in Canada ran restaurants in midsized cities and smaller, to appeal to the local demographic. It’s only the past 30 -40 years where the Greek and Italian dishes are offered alongside the steak.
Now, the Greeks, Italians and others who arrived between 1950 and 1990 are retiring or dying. Family restaurants in smaller cities and towns are often run by new immigrants. Filipino owners and cook in the diner my cousins visit in rural Sask. South Asian families running the restaurants that had been run by Greeks for 50 years and often 2 or 3 gens.
Now, in Toronto, we also have a gimmicky restaurant called the Hungary Thai. I haven’t been. I think I would have heard more if it was making good Thai food or good Hungarian food. I don’t get the impression it does either cuisine well.
Rasta Pasta, owned by a Jamaican husband and an Italian wife, is quite popular. I think I want once.
I am intrigued by foods that occurred in various places, due to history , such as Ethiopia spaghetti.
I would be less likely to go to a restaurant where the 2 foods don’t have a context to explain why the 2 cuisines are offered in one restaurant.
That said, I’m also intrigued by all the new South Asian pizza spots, which are chasing a new demographic here, new arrivals in Canada who want the kind of pizza they can find at home. One is called Karachi Pizza in Toronto. These pizza places often have other South Asian food offerings.
I have tried Persian pizza. I will be trying Korean pizza soon.
I forgot to mention the Greek-Vietnamese place we went to in Scottsdale several years ago, where they had (among other things) a gyro bánh mì. It turns out the owners were a couple where was was of Greek heritage and the other Vietnamese.
(My standard line about fusion meals is that my father was Puerto Rican, my mother was Jewish, and in our house, gefilte fish with Puerto Rican beans and rice was considered a normal meal.)
Does anyone remember HRD in San Fran? It was Korean-Mexican fusion in an Everyman diner on an incongruous stretch. B and I went just as the new fusion menu created the swirl of hype. Man, that was a memorable bite of food (we both had burritos, mine was veggie, his had beef). Hell if I can remember the exact details. But I think what they did changed the landscape of “fusion” way before the Roy Choi’/David Chang’s of the world.
Ed Lee’s Milkwood was excellent Korean-Southern fusion in Louisville, an ethos also reflected in his cookbook Smoke and Pickles. We thought it worked very well and was both innovative and comforting.
