WASHINGTON – The humble lollipop, that sticky, sweet treat on a stick, has made its way up the food chain to an upscale restaurant near you, The Wall Street Journal reports. At Komi in Washington, D.C., you can lick sour orange and salted lemon; at Lime in San Francisco, you can taste a chocolate-covered cheesecake version; and at David Burke & Donatella in Manhattan, you can indulge in a lollipop forest in a bubblegum whipped cream sauce.

The true lollipop, or sucker, has its roots in the United States as far back as the 1930s. And as early as 1999, chefs were peppering their dessert trays with grown-up versions of the childhood treat. That year, pastry chef Gale Gand at Chicago’s TRU placed watermelon and vanilla lollipops on the dessert menu, followed a year later by chef Alain Ducasse, who used the sweet treats as giveaways to departing guests at his now-closed restaurant at New York's Essex House. Last winter, chef Gordon Ramsay added lollipops to his dessert tray at the London Hotel in New York.

The lollipop is not just for dessert, either. Many restaurateurs serve up savory lollipops on a stick, such as Buffalo-chicken-wing lollipops at Boston’s West on Centre, quail lollipops at Westin’s Dragonara Resort on the Mediterranean isle of Malta or seared-tuna lollipops at Lollipop in Manhattan.