When it comes to culinary staples, there may be no dish more iconic than the Caesar salad. But for all its glory and popularity – Paris’s International Society of Epicure named the Caesar Salad the greatest recipe to originate in the Americas in the last half century – the salad has an especially blurry history.
The salad was first introduced at Caesar’s Place in Tijuana, Mexico in the early 1920s. With Prohibition putting a damper on Los Angeles’ nightlife, Tijuana’s Main Street (now known as Avenida Revolución) became a playground for L.A.’s wealthy and famous, with some likening it to an early Las Vegas. To capitalize on the migration – and the ability to serve alcohol – Italian-born, French-inspired chef Caesar Cardini opened an outpost of his restaurant there, attracting everyone from Rita Hayworth to a young Julia Child, who later recalled dining there with her parents as a child. Cardini, along with his brother Alex, were known personalities on the Tijuana scene, restaurateurs with a flair for showmanship and a reputation for good food.
To hear his daughter tell it, one July night the Tijuana restaurant became so overwhelmed with patrons that Caesar was forced to create a dish out of ingredients left in the kitchen. He combined eggs, olive oil, croutons, parmesan cheese and Worcestershire sauce into a dressing and served it with stalks of lettuce (lettuce salads were popular at the time) meant to be eaten as a finger food, then prepared it all tableside to entertain the hungry crowds. A star was born.
Over the years other theories have come to the forefront. Some say Caesar’s brother Alex was the actual inventor, getting creative with ingredients to impress a group of airmen dining at his own restaurant (his version included lime, anchovies and garlic). Others credit the recipe to Livio Santini, an employee of Caesar and Alex who supposedly built the dish from a recipe his mother taught him back home in Italy. But whatever the truth, the salad remains. And for those with a taste for the original, so does Caesars’ Tijuana, now owned by Chef Javier Plasencia and his family.
