Legend has it that Italian immigrant Caesar Cardini was at his restaurant in Tijuana on a very busy day when he quickly whipped up a salad using ingredients he happened to have readily available.
This week, Tijuana is hosting a four-day centenary celebration for the enduring dish once celebrated by the International Society of Epicures in Paris as “the best recipe to emerge from America in the last 50 years.”
“It's a recipe that has traveled all over the world,” said famous Tijuana chef Javier Plascencia, whose family now runs the eponymous Caesar's restaurant. “Everyone loves it, and the fact that it comes from Tijuana makes us proud. It's also a duty to continue promoting its history.”
But as with every legend, there are various versions.
Over the years, many names have been floated because the salad's inventor, including Cardini, his brother Alex Cardini, and Livio Santini, a young chef at what was then Caesar's Place who some imagine brought his mother's salad recipe from Italy. There's also chef Giacomo Junia, who is claimed to have invented the salad in Chicago in 1903. And there are more.
Tijuana historian Fernando Escobedo de la Torre and businessman Armando Avakian Gámez add their very own well-researched interpretation to the lore in a brand new book published to mark the centenary. They conclude that the unique salad was created by Caesar Cardini in Tijuana on July 4, 1924. Their book relies on witness testimony, historical archives and eight years of research, they said.
One of the famous American chef and tv personality Julia Child's earliest restaurant memories is the day she visited Caesar's restaurant in Tijuana as a teen.
Tijuana enjoyed a thriving out-of-town tourist attraction throughout the Prohibition era, also attracting Italian immigrants like Cardini to town's food and wine scene.
“People flocked from the Los Angeles area to eat at the restaurants; they drank forbidden beer and cocktails while they roamed the city's bars; they strolled through the flower-filled courtyard of Agua Caliente and listened to the marimba band, and they gambled sinfully at the casino,” she wrote in her 1975 book, “From Julia Child's Kitchen.” “The word got out about Tijuana and the good life, and about Caesar Cardini's restaurant and about Caesar's salad.”
Her parents ordered the much-talked-about dish. “Caesar himself rolled the big cart to the table, tossed the romaine lettuce into a big wooden bowl, and I wish I could say I remember every move, but I can't,” she wrote. “The only thing I see clearly again are the eggs. I can see him cracking two eggs over the romaine lettuce and rolling them in it, the greens getting all creamy as the eggs pour over them. Two eggs in a salad? … And garlic croutons and grated Parmesan cheese? This salad was a sensation from coast to coast, and there were even rumors of its success in Europe.”
This original version of the salad was noticeably devoid of anchovies.
It was the regulars themselves who spread the word to other parts of the United States and even Europe. Celebrities and other personalities became endorsers of the salad, Escobedo said. “It went viral,” he said. “To the point that today you can find it on every menu in every country in the world.”
Around 1930, in response to an original menu on display at Caesar's Restaurant, the salad was offered as “Romaine Parmigian Dressing” for 50 cents.
Controversial origins
This simplified origin story appears to have been promoted, but additionally questioned, by Cardini's family over time.
“I don't care how many times this story has been published and repeated,” Rosa Cardini said in a 1995 interview with The Daily Breeze. “My father was an incredibly professional restaurant and hotel owner. It is absolutely impossible that he ran out of food. He was just a little short of food, that's all.”
“Also, there are reports all the time that he would run into the kitchen like mad, just pick up whatever was there, and make the Caesar salad,” she continued. “Well, my father had professional training in food preparation. The reason this salad has lasted so long and been so successful is because it really is a masterpiece.
She added: “Every ingredient was chosen to pair perfectly with the others. They were not only chosen arbitrarily because he ran out of food.” Rosa Cardini, a native of San Diego, died in 2003 at the age of 75.
The story goes that Caesar's brother Alex Cardini, a chef and former Italian Air Force pilot in World War I, added anchovy paste to a crostini and named it Aviator's Salad in honor of the pilots at Rockwell Field Air Base in San Diego. This version of the salad – which was later called Alex's Caesar Salad – was created in 1927, according to Escobedo.
Years later, Santini, a young chef who began working with the brothers in late 1924, also gave the salad his own twist by adding paprika to the croutons, according to research by Escobedo and Avakian, the owner of the property where Caesar's now stands.
Martin Lindsay, chairman of the nonprofit Culinary Historians of San Diego, has been researching the story for more than five years and believes it ultimately comes down to the Cardini brothers and Santini.
“People kept saying 'no, it was him,' 'no, it was him,'” Lindsay said. “People on the West Coast, in San Diego and Tijuana, say it was Caesar. People in Texas say it was Alex, because Alex's sons and a few of his family still live in Texas. And then there's Livio Santini and his family.”
But Lindsay believes that “all three were involved in one way or another in the birth of the Caesar salad.”
“I can say with certainty that it came from Tijuana,” Lindsay said.
Escobedo and Avakian claim that the salad was created at Cardini's previous location, Café Alhambra, where he operated from 1922 to 1925. The restaurant was also located on Avenida Revolución for a time, but was destroyed in a fire. He later opened Caesar's Place (1926-1930) on Second Avenue and moved to its current downtown location on Avenida Revolución.
The ingredients
At Caesar's Restaurant, the salad is still prepared tableside, just like Child's. The waiter, dressed in a tie and vest, prepares the current version of the original salad in a wooden bowl in front of the guests.
First, the dressing ingredients are mixed together – anchovies, garlic, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, lime juice, egg yolk, olive oil and Parmesan cheese. The dressing is then mixed with large pieces of romaine lettuce, more cheese and a crostini. The dish is ready in about three minutes.
Between 8,500 and 9,000 Caesar salads are prepared at the restaurant each month, said salad master Efraín Montoya, and people travel to the restaurant from across Mexico, the United States and beyond to try them.
“We must not lose the tradition of preparing the salad on the table,” said Plascencia. “It is a real art that every one our waiters and salad preparers are very pleased with.”
The restaurant has been run by the Plascencia family since 2010. Juan José Plascencia, who is also currently president of the Tijuana chapter of the National Chamber of Restaurant and Condiment Food Industry, said they took over the restaurant when they realized it was going to close.
Plascencia said his grandfather used to be a bartender at Caesar's, so the family has a special connection to the place. “It's an iconic restaurant,” he said.
In the restaurant, guests are given the recipe for the current version of the original on cards in English and Spanish.
Birthday party
The salad will be the star of the city's centenary celebrations.
The celebrations include two sold-out dinners with renowned chefs. The release of the 100th anniversary book and a commemorative Casa Magoni wine will take place on Friday; admission is free.
And on Sunday, Avenida Revolución will host a 1930s-style festival featuring gastronomic offerings from celebrity chefs. Tickets are available online for around $75. For more information, visit TijuanaCaesars.comPart of the proceeds will go to the Tijuana Without Hunger Foundation, organizers said.
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