The story of the hotel where “A Hurry” was created a dish that became famous worldwide

With almost two million inhabitants in its urban area, it is the Second city of Mexico, in the most busy border in the world: By the San Ysidro step, it crosses an average of 100 thousand people every dayfrom Mexico to the United States or in the opposite direction.

It is probably close to the border with “the great country of the north” is what gives it to Tijuana your special temperament, your unique atmosphere, your Polifaceted and vibrant culture typical of border areas, but with their own condiments: thousands of people arrive every year to the city with the hope of cross that high wall That begins here, or ends, depending on the point of view.

It is that on the beaches of Tijuana, that wall that was initially built during the Bill Clinton government and that grew greatly in the first management of Donald Trump It enters several meters in the seaas trying to discourage those who think about crossing it swimming.

Here, Much of the wall is doublewith a route in the middle through which “La Migra” guards circulate, as they call the United States Migration Police.

Curious fact: in other times the border area became “friendly” for a while on certain dates, when relatives who had stayed on either side of the wall could meet and,, Through the high metal columns, look, touch your hands, talk closely. Not anymore.

What there are are somewhat morbid tours that “rebuild” the sufferings suffered by migrants, and invite tourists to look on a small wall wall and try to jump it, with actors dressed in police.

Many of those who arrive in Tijuana to pass to the United States, of course, do not succeed, and there are few who They end up settling in the citycontributing to the growth of the population and the cultural mix, enriched with migrants from several regions of Mexico and several countries from Central America, Africa and Asia.

And also from the southern part of California, because from the center of Tijuana to downtown San Diego, in the United States, there are less than 30 kilometerswith Chulavista and its numerous residential neighborhoods in the middle, such as Bonita, Imperial Beach or Sunbow.

Tijuana is also a tourist cityto which many Californians reach and it is interesting on their beaches, the long avenues that circulate next to the border wall, the El Cubo museum or the Historical Avenida Revolutionpopulated with hotels, restaurants, canteens, discos, craft stores, government offices, supermarkets, coffees, games houses and quantity of shops.

Just one of the hotels on this avenue particularly attracts the interest of many visitors, especially for their history. In the 1079 of Revolution Avenue, the hotel Caesar’sfounded in 1931 by the Italian immigrant César (Cesare) Cardini, a chef who had already had a restaurant in Italy and then settled in California.

After opening restaurants in Sacramento and San Diego (where he lived), he crossed the border to do the same in Tijuana, who then began to live his first boom as a tourist destination and was attractive to the Californians who then The “Dry Law” had to endure in their lands: Crossing Mexico there were no restrictions for drinking alcohol.

There, in him Restaurant Cardiniowned by César, was where The famous salad was invented César, or Caesar’s in English, which today can be requested with the same name in restaurants around the world.

Hay two versions Regarding its creation. The most romantic of them, if you want, tells that CheF invented the salad “accidental” on July 4, 1924when the restaurant was full of Americans in the celebration plan of the Independence Day of their country, and the kitchen supplies were exhausted.

Then Cardini -or his chefs, according to the different options for this version- He must have managed with what he had leftand mixed Roman lettuce with croûtons (pieces of toasted bread), egg, Parmesan cheese and the “César dressing”, a creamy egg yolk, garlic, anchovies, lemon juice, dijon mustard and olive oil.

The Another versionmore prosaic, of its creation, says that César Cardini created the recipe not for trouble but conscientiously, after essays and tests And mistakes, until he obtained a flavor that formed it.

Anyway, the truth is that the César salad (or Caesar’s, like the hotel) He was born here, on Tijuana’s most popular avenueand became famous to a large extent thanks to the celebrities who sat at the table of the Ceasar’s hotel restaurant to enjoy it, like the movie stars Clark Gable y Jean Harlow.

That, curiously, is the story of one of the most famous and most ordered dishes in the United States than, paradoxically, it was created in Mexico.

Today, dozens of people arrive every day at the Caesar’s hotel restaurant to savor their most famous dish, than It is usually prepared at a table in view of dinersas it was done before. Dressed in a vest and tie, a waiter prepares the current version of the original salad in a wooden bowl in front of the guests.

One tradition that has beenalthough since 2010 the restaurant is in the hands of the Plascencia family, with the famous local chef Javier Plascencia at the head.

Is that Tijuana, there is no doubt, is proud of its creation. As demonstrated in July 2024, when he organized a Four days celebration to celebrate the 100 -year of the iconic dishto which even the international gastronic society in Paris acclaimed as “the best recipe originated in the Americas in 50 years.”

And just as in other years there were stars from Hollywood and Americans who escaped for a few days of the dry law, today do thousands of people visiting Tijuana in Tourism Plan or “Medicinal Tourism”: the city is one of the main world destinations for “medical tourism”in charge of “gringos” that become treatments or surgeries that are costing several dollars less than in their country.

The truth is that, hurried or not, a little over 100 years ago César Cardini created here a dish that transcended times and borders and brought his name, and that of Tijuana, To all corners of the planet.