From left, Mexican Consul General in Los Angeles Carlos Gonzalez Gutierrez, Javier Plasencia, and Casa Vega owner Christy Vega attend the Casa Vega 68th Anniversary Party at Casa Vega in Sherman Oaks, California on June 18, 2024. Plasencia is chef and owner of Caesars restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico, where the Caesar salad was invented 100 years ago. To celebrate the anniversary, Casa Vega will add the original salad recipe to its menu. (Jesse Grant/Getty Images via Casa Vega)
Casa Vega celebrates perhaps the most famous salad of all time while looking back and cherishing family ties.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the simple but ubiquitous Caesar salad, invented in Tijuana, Mexico, and a long-established San Fernando Valley restaurant is adding its own version to its menu with the help of the Michelin-starred chef who runs the restaurant where the salad originated.
“It’s the perfect blend of ingredients, the perfect combination of flavors. To me, it’s the perfect recipe. Everybody loves this salad, and it’s spread all over the world,” said Javier Plasencia, chef and owner of Caesars restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico, where the salad was invented in 1924. To further mark the anniversary, Casa Vega will be offering a free Caesar salad with the purchase of an entrée on the Fourth of July.
To celebrate the salad’s anniversary and the restaurant’s 68th anniversary, Plascencia visited Casa Vega in late June and prepared the salad tableside.
“They’re now trying to recreate the authentic recipes and make them tableside and add them to the menu,” he said.
Plasencia said the salad was invented by Cesar Cardini, a Tijuana restaurant owner who opened a restaurant on Avenida Revolucion in 1923.
The story goes that after a very busy day on the Fourth of July, a customer came into the restaurant late at night and asked if they still had anything to eat. Cardini looked around the kitchen and realized that after being busy all day, they only had a few ingredients left: olive oil, Parmesan cheese, Worcestershire sauce, lettuce, garlic, lemon, and eggs. So he mixed these ingredients with the lettuce to create his famous salad. It wasn’t until a few years later that he added anchovies.
“They came up with this creation and loved it so much that people started asking for the salads, so Cardini started making them tableside,” Plascencia said.
His restaurant in Tijuana still prepares the salad tableside, just like they did 100 years ago, and people still love it, ordering about 3,500 of them a week. Plasencia is happy his original salad will be served at Casa Vega because there’s a special connection.
“This restaurant is part of the family. Ray Vega, who founded Casa Vega, is my mother’s cousin. It’s a landmark in Los Angeles and it’s an honor for us to serve these traditional recipes,” he said.
Casa Vega is located at 13301 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. Contact them at 818-788-4868 or casavega.com.
