Caesar Negroni. Credit: Meghan O'Connor

Caesar’s New Reign: How the World’s Most Ubiquitous Salad Got Weird

8 Minute read

05 Nov 2025

Kiki Aranita

Journalist

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Once a steakhouse staple, the classic has been reborn with nori, tofu, bagoong, and even Negronis. All hail the wild new world of Caesar.

As I stabbed my fork into the Caesar salad at Yardbird in Hong Kong last month, through its layers of shredded nori, tiny crunchy fried whitebait, and mizuna dressed with a miso-anchovy vinaigrette, it occurred to me how far the Caesar salad has traveled.

In 1924, the Caesar salad was born in Tijuana, a lightly funky marriage of romaine and croutons with a sauce of olive oil, eggs, Worcestershire, mustard, anchovies, garlic, black pepper, and Parmesan, concocted by Italian restaurateur Caesar Cardini. Over the past century, Caesar’s salad has been embraced by the most basic American restaurants, often made tableside with an air of throwback steakhouse charm, its dressing emulsified in front of witnesses—diners—watching the magic gel together. Drew Nieporent, whom I interviewed last month, describes the process as it should be performed by restaurant captains in his memoir: “Put an anchovy in a wooden bowl with a tiny bit of garlic and mash it around. Put the greens on top, add a little olive oil and lemon juice, plus a coddled egg. With two spoons, mix it all up, add the cheese and croutons, plus a touch of black pepper, and present it with a flourish.”

Omit the anchovies (most of the time), and plastic clamshells of Caesar salad fill the cold cases of airport grab-and-gos and are tossed aggressively with tongs at your local Sweetgreen.

Once upon a time, the Caesar salad was definitely just a salad, but that time is no longer. Chefs and even bartenders across America are turning it into everything but a salad—including, with varying degrees of success, cocktails—probably to the chagrin of many Canadians, to whom a Caesar is already a cocktail that has nothing to do with salad. We’ve reached a new era for the Caesar, and it’s being adopted and adapted by virtually every cuisine.

“The salad part of Caesar salad has become optional,” said Margaret Eby, author of the cookbook You Gotta Eat, which contains no recipes, only suggestions on how to feed oneself while in the depths of despair.

Yardbird Caesar. Credit: Kiki Aranita

At Osteria Mozza in Washington, DC, it’s reborn as Nancy’s Caesar: dressed romaine set beside crostini piled high with leeks, eggs, and whole twirled anchovy fillets. Also in DC, Perry’s serves a Wafu Caesar with a dressing made from shiokoji and anchovies, topped with quinoa and Parmesan. At Tabachoy in Philadelphia, its fishy funk comes not from anchovy but from bright pink bagoong, the Filipino fermented shrimp paste, which coats shredded Napa cabbage and mustard greens. At MAKfam in Denver, chef Kenneth Wan serves a charred gai lan Caesar made with fish sauce and fermented tofu.

I find myself constantly craving Don Angie’s garlicky, crunchy Caesar made with chrysanthemum greens. The Pig and the Lady in Honolulu also serves a chrysanthemum green Caesar, but with Chinese hot mustard in the dressing and puffed wild rice instead of croutons. I love the straightforward grilled romaine Caesar at Tequila’s in Philadelphia, served with a steak knife. Caesars ignore the boundaries of culture and cuisine. They’re Italian, Vietnamese, Hawaiian, Japanese, Filipino, Chinese, Mexican, and thoroughly American. They can be cold, hot, or room temperature.

When it is a salad, its newfound popularity at fine dining restaurants dovetails with big, fluffy lettuces, piled very, very high. “When did restaurant salads get so…unwieldy?” asked a New York Times article earlier this summer, remarking on the beautiful towers of whole-leaf lettuce encountered at restaurants around the country (they’re visually striking, but difficult to eat).

Vegan Caesars now abound. Middle Child Clubhouse serves a vegan chicory salad with kombu dressing and both nori and dulse flakes for texture and funk. At Post Haste, where my husband Ari Miller is the executive chef, the “Caesar” is made with a tofu-based dressing blended silky smooth in a Vitamix. It’s extra crunchy with crisped squares of polenta, toasted black sesame seeds, and puffed farro—because who needs bread on their Caesar salad anyway? Et tu, bread.

With every component open to substitution, whether anchovy, lettuce, or eggs, do I even know what a Caesar salad is anymore? Anything labeled Caesar should be a little funky, certainly, but that funk might come from nutritional yeast, miso, seaweed, shiokoji, bagoong, or something else entirely.

There were only two weeks between the stabbing of my fork into Yardbird Hong Kong’s whitebait-sprinkled Caesar and the full-on Caesar meal I had in South Philadelphia at the American Sardine Bar. There was the relatively straightforward version blanketed with thin slices of rutabaga and tinned Galician sardines (because even slightly divey bars serve excellent conservas these days), but also a Caesar Negroni made with romaine- and Parmesan-infused Tequila Corazon and Carpano Bianco infused with lemon, peppercorn, and anchovy. “So you’ve got all the ingredients that would go into your Caesar salad, but in a Negroni,” said ASB general manager Meghan O’Connor. It’s garnished with three croutons, stabbed through with a cocktail pick.

It’s savory, bitter, lettuce-y, and strange, but also quite good. If there’s anything to be gained from this trend, let it be permission to take the loose parameters of a Caesar salad and get weird.