Caesar’s

Caesar’s is the Avenida Revolución dining room where the Caesar salad was born, and a century later the salad is still the reason most people walk in. It sits inside the Hotel Caesar’s building in Zona Centro, a walkable distance from the San Ysidro pedestrian crossing, and it draws a mix of San Diego day-trippers, Tijuana families marking an occasion and food travelers who want to see the dish made in a wooden bowl beside the table. It is a sit-down, white-tablecloth kind of place rather than a quick stop on the Revu.

The food

The signature is the tableside Caesar: a server builds the dressing in front of you from anchovy, lemon, egg yolk and Parmesan (imported Parmigiano Reggiano these days), then coats whole romaine leaves that are meant to be picked up and eaten by hand. The rest of the menu is European-leaning international cooking with Italian and Spanish accents. Escargots, fettuccine carbonara, four-cheese ravioli, chateaubriand and other steaks, a salmon Wellington, a classic beef milanesa, and desserts such as crème brûlée and New York cheesecake come up again and again in diner reports. Executive chef Nadya Fernández leads the kitchen, and seasonal specials rotate, so ask what the chef is suggesting that week.

The story

Italian immigrant Caesar Cardini opened on Avenida Revolución in 1923 and put the salad together in 1924, improvising with what he had on hand during the Prohibition years that made Tijuana a playground for Southern California. The Hotel Caesar followed in 1931. The restaurant passed through many owners over the decades, and in 2011 the Plascencia family’s Grupo Plascencia, whose chef Javier Plascencia is one of the names behind Baja Med cooking, bought the property and brought it back to life. In July 2024 the city marked the salad’s centennial with chef dinners, a festival on the avenue and a statue of Cardini for the Revu.

Prices and entry

Expect to spend. OpenTable places the restaurant in its MX$500-and-up band per person, and the listed dress code is smart casual. Reservations go directly through the restaurant, by phone at 664 685 1927 or WhatsApp at 664 502 9661, rather than through a booking platform. Lunch is the busiest service, so a weekend midday table is worth booking ahead.

Getting there

The address is Av. Revolución 8190 in Zona Centro; older listings still show the 1070s numbering from before the avenue was renumbered. From the San Ysidro pedestrian crossing you can walk down to the Revu or take a short taxi or Uber ride. Valet parking operates at the corner of Revolución and Calle 5ta (Emiliano Zapata), in front of the Carl’s Jr., according to the restaurant’s OpenTable listing.

Good to know

Hours posted on the official site are Monday to Thursday noon to 9:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday noon to 10 p.m., and Sunday noon to 9 p.m. Order the salad even if you think you know what a Caesar tastes like: recent visitors who were lukewarm on the mains still called the salad the high point of the visit. The bar makes classic cocktails to match the 1920s room. Eric’s own take, with a rating, is in his Caesar’s review. The rest of the Revu’s bars and shops are right outside the door.

For more places to eat downtown see our guides, and check the calendar for what’s on in Tijuana this week.