With a name like Caesar, you might picture togas and Roman banquets. Plenty of people assume the famous salad was named for Julius Caesar. But this restaurant classic is not ancient at all, and it isn't even from Italy. It was born less than a hundred years ago, just south of the U.S. border.
The Caesar salad is generally credited to Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who ran restaurants in Mexico and the United States. According to his daughter, he created it at his restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico, on July 4, 1924, when a holiday rush left the kitchen short on supplies. He made do with what he had and tossed it at the table with a bit of showmanship.
A Restaurant Built on Prohibition
Why was an Italian restaurateur living in San Diego running a restaurant in Tijuana? The answer is Prohibition. Alcohol was banned in the United States, so Americans crossed the border to eat, drink, and celebrate. Cardini's restaurant, Caesar's, was set up to attract them. In other words, Cardini simply followed his customers across the border.
On that crowded Fourth of July, the kitchen ran low. Cardini threw together a salad from what he had on hand and turned its preparation into a tableside performance. The dish is still prepared tableside at the original restaurant today.
Who Really Invented It?
Like many famous dishes, the Caesar salad has more than one origin story. Some accounts credit Caesar's brother, Alex Cardini, and say the dish was first called the Aviator Salad because it was made for pilots who flew down during Prohibition. Several members of the restaurant's staff also claimed to have invented it. One cook's son said his father supplied the recipe.
A 2024 book backed the claim that Caesar Cardini was the originator. And the Julius Caesar connection? That's simply a popular myth.
No Anchovies in the Original
The original recipe may surprise you. Famed chef Julia Child said she ate a Caesar salad at Cardini's restaurant as a youngster in the 1920s. She remembered whole romaine leaves meant to be picked up by the stem and eaten with your fingers, tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, coddled eggs, Parmesan, and garlicky croutons.
Notice what's missing: anchovies. Cardini's daughter and other sources say the original used only Worcestershire sauce for that savory kick. Cardini considered anchovies, mustard, and herbs too bold. Today, most recipes treat anchovies as essential, and many dressings are made creamy with mayonnaise.
From Tijuana to Hollywood to Your Table
The salad's big break came through Hollywood. In a 1952 interview, Cardini said it became well known in 1937, when a Paramount Pictures story editor named Manny Wolf shared the recipe with Hollywood restaurants. By 1946, newspaper columnist Dorothy Kilgallen was calling it "the big food rage in Hollywood" as it headed to New York, describing a version that already included anchovies.
Later, bottled Caesar dressing became a supermarket staple, sold by many companies, including one bearing the Cardini name. In the 1970s, Julia Child published a version based on an interview with Cardini's daughter, with the ingredients tossed into the lettuce one at a time.
So the next time you order a Caesar salad, raise a crouton to a resourceful restaurateur in Tijuana who turned an empty pantry into one of the most popular salads in America.
