HAIL, CAESAR

The first of the great American main-course salads — the Caesar — has made a comeback at many of the best upscale restaurants in the U.S. Created by Caesar Cardini at Caesar’s Palace in Tijuana, Mexico, on the hot Fourth of July weekend of 1924 to serve his Hollywood star customers something cool and refreshing, the salad became an immediate hit back at the fashionable restaurants in Los Angeles, which, of course, led to its becoming a classic American dish almost overnight. Contemporary chefs have added a few items to the original recipe (which did not contain anchovies), but essentially it is the freshness of the ingredients — romaine lettuce, Parmesan cheese, garlic, and good olive oil — as well as the coldness of the serving dish that makes Caesar salad a perennial favorite. Here are several restaurants that are doing Caesars the way they deserve to be made.



rosemary’s, las vegas; (702) 869-2251
grand street cafe, kansas city, missouri;
(816) 561-8000
mythos, universal studios, orlando; (407) 224-4533
nine, chicago; (312) 575-9900
bull and bear, new york city; (212) 872-4900
celestino drago italian steak house,
west hollywood; (310) 858-5777
cowboy ciao, scottsdale, arizona; (480) 946-3111
driskill grill, austin, texas; (512) 474-5911
broussard’s, new orleans; (504) 581-3866