Hailing the Greatest Caesar Salad

Great Caesar’s Ghost!

Since this column aired the plaint from Toby M. Horn of Los Angeles a few weeks ago about the difficulty of finding a good Caesar salad in Southern California--Horn fondly remembers the great Caesars served at the long-defunct House of Murphy on San Vicente and has not since met its match--I have been deluged with recommendations of prime examples of the thing.

Barbara Balough and Susan Davis of Marina del Rey, for instance, find the Caesar at 72 Market Street in Venice to be “consistently perfect.” Lauren Melendrez of Los Angeles used to like the one at the late Darwin in Santa Monica (which closely resembled that at 72 Market, incidentally) and now thinks the Caesar at L.A. Nicola, on the eastern end of Sunset, is about the best around. Michelle Taylor-Thomas of North Hollywood votes for the Caesar at La Frite in Sherman Oaks. Richard George of San Marino favors that at Roger Kislinbury’s Club 41 in Pasadena, and, as a second choice, the version served by the Pasadena Chronicle. Fred L. Robinson of Santa Barbara suggests that community’s old-line Somerset for its Caesar. Pam Linderman, general manager of the Chart House in Westwood, modestly proposes that her own establishment can’t be beat Caesar-wise.

Other nominations have been forwarded to this column for the Caesars at the Grill in Beverly Hills, Vito’s in Santa Monica, the Marquis West in West L.A., Fresco in Glendale, the Manhattan Empress Hotel in La Jolla, Fenwick’s Table in Toluca Lake, Moustache Cafe in West Hollywood and Nickodell in Hollywood, among other places. And Stephen Ross of Burbank, in recommending the Caesar at Scandia on the Sunset Strip, raises what might well be the subject of a future column: that Scandia is one of the relatively few remaining restaurants in our town with bartenders who know how to mix real drinks (the perfect Old-Fashioned, the classic Manhattan “up,” etc.) instead of just things that come out of a blender.

My favorite Caesar letter of all, though, comes from Elizabeth A. Gonzales of Los Angeles. The Caesar salad she likes best, she writes, is the one her father makes, using “diced anchovies, the coddled egg, garlic oil (heavy on the garlic) and croutons made from French bread.” She is not old enough to remember the House of Murphy, as Toby Horn does, she adds, but she has no doubt that her father’s Caesar is every bit as good as the one at that establishment--because her father, Billy P. Arellano, was once a chef there.

WHAT’S COOKIN’?: Hy’s in Century City throws a “Great Gatsby Roaring Twenties” party next Sunday--including hors d’oeuvres, three-course dinner with wine and champagne, entertainment and live music for dancing, all at $75 per person--to benefit the Jeffrey Foundation, which cares for handicapped children. . . . Also next Sunday, food and beverage director Russell Ruscigno and executive chef Nick Dockmonish of the New Otani Hotel & Garden, downtown, will demonstrate recipes blending Japanese and Italian cuisine. The demonstration runs from 3 to 4 p.m. and costs $13 a head in advance and $15 a head at the door. . . . From Monday the 26th through Thursday the 29th, chef Michel Blanchet will offer the latest in his series of regional French gastronomic dinners at L’Ermitage on La Cienega. The subject this month is Brittany. . . . Saint Estephe in Manhattan Beach now offers a new “menu within a menu” that features traditional northern New Mexican dishes (pork tamales, cactus and jicama salad, rabbit with pinto beans, etc.) alongside, or rather “within,” the “Modern Southwest Cuisine” selections for which it is so well known. . . . And the Stage Deli of New York--Century City edition--is holding a series of New York-area high school reunion parties. Coming up: New Utrecht (Monday), Eastern District (Sept. 26), Erasmus (Sept. 27), Jefferson (Oct. 3), Riverdale Country School, Horace Mann and Fieldston (Oct. 4), Sheepshead, South Shore, Wingate Bayridge and Fort Hamilton (Oct. 11) and Tilden (Oct. 17).