The Definitive Ethics Magazine Ranking of an Italian American Classic
by True
“Parm will not save you”
What marks the voice of God past the echo of our own? What creates the timelessness of American tradition save for the passage of time itself? And what is with these slack-jawed neanderthals putting TOMATOES in a goddamn Caesar? Picture this:
Girl, unknown, New York City—terminally and perpetually desperate. Many such cases. I’m her, that’s it, she’s me. You meet her at a party and she tells you she runs a literary magazine that publishes emergent forms of language in a new and exciting way, on the forefront of the American vanguard, and you’re like, that’s sooo cool, and then you ask her what she’s working on and she says well I’m trying to find the best Caesar Salad in New York for this writeup, and you’re like: Oh. Well if it’s good enough for the top brass of a national television network, it’s good enough for me.
Really what this is is an ever-evolving, constantly updated list of every Caesar Salad I come across. Watch this space...
John’s of 12th Street
302 E 12th St, New York, NY 10003
Divinity, obviously. The advancements in food science happening vis-à-vis the mushroom-as-anchovy situation on display here need to be studied in a place of worship. Old school, new school—No school, just class. Been my fave Caesar in the city for years now and don’t see it getting toppled anytime soon. Excellent atmosphere for the sneaky vegan upper echelon and please stop showing up at 9pm.
Marcellino
178 Mulberry St, New York, NY 10012
Simple, elegant, perfect like an advertisement for a Caesar salad from a dream. Every bite just how you like it. You feel it all, right there—Every single step. No complaints and hate to say it goes crazy with chicken (Repeat offender).
Carmenta’s
50 Starr St, Brooklyn, NY 11221
This one’s a daymaker. If you weren’t having a good day before this, you are now. At a bit of a hipster hole in the wall, like white guy hip hop vibes on Wilson Avenue, slipping a simply incredible Caesar right under the noses of the Bushwick dirt-elite. A block from Maria Hernandez, this just is a surprisingly gorgeous salad. Don’t come for the ambience, come for the homemade croutons and acres of Pecorino. There’s a spiral staircase down to the kitchen, which they let you go through to use the bathroom—always a plus for me. Pair it with a tall diet coke which they do sell in the fridges there for the perfect middle of the day, scrambled from the sun, deceptively delightful refresher.
Scarr’s Pizza
35 Orchard St, New York, NY 10002
Shut the fuck up. You’re actually joking. Pull up your bootstraps, strap on your strap-ons and fucking lock in because this salad will throw you. Here I am in the picture of a Tahini dream the likes of which this dim-lit pit-stop between scenes should never have even seen, let alone be able to produce like the burning bush in front of me, and Lo, I am Moses, despondant and manic and starving. I have no way of knowing, justifying, or proving this, but I just feel like a lesbian designed this salad. First of all, fucking massive, let’s keep that in mind. Your girlfriend didn’t need that pesto slice after all, because she’s getting in on this, too. This thickness is truly unparalleled, I mean this fucking thing will leave you lapping against the roof of your mouth like a goddamn gay girl Garfield, and the pussy of this Caesar is the last lasagna this side of Sunday night, get to work and dig in. Okay, I’m mixing metaphors a little, but this salad does disorient in a similar fashion, calls to mind another time in which, drunk, squatting abreast the cool fluorescent fridgelight, you did then take the bagged light Caesar and you did then add the extra dressing, and you did then pour the whole thing in the container of hummus from the last time your ex slept over and O, it was actually perfect. Definitely vegan, though without artifice, this salad grips your wrists and takes you from behind, and when you wake up shivering and naked, gripping nothing but a memory and bedsheets covered in breadcrumbs you will be literally grateful. You just will be.
Dimes
49 Canal St, New York, NY 10002
A Caesar that doesn’t meet, doesn’t defy, but challenges your expectations of what a Caesar can be. A parallel to a Caesar, operating on a different plane. If you’re looking for traditional, honey, this isn’t it, which is exactly makes it the perfect candidate for fifth place (the inevitable positionality of the salad that zigs when you zag). But don’t be fooled, this is not a salad that fights back, but rather squirms and smiles before soft, subtle submission
Editors note: I’m well aware that this matches my complaints about forgetmenot but it just does do it better, or I was feeling charitable so it was welcome
Golden Diner
123 Madison St, New York, NY 10002
Now this is a fucking classic. Very straightforward, lettuce sizing perfect, croutons exceptional and vegan though the fish is clearly missing. It’s giving Diner Salad, but isn’t the whole point of going to the diner to feel like you’re some kind of degenerate detective caught up in a high-stakes plot, only getting darker as it unfolds, a la the American tradition of nostalgia-in-the-moment? Tell your date to order that fucking pancake so you get a bite to go with.
Corner Bar
10 Allen St, New York, NY, 10002
Like and wish I loved. I can’t even put my finger on exactly what this salad’s offense is. Sure it’s decadent with a subtle twang in the way I appreciate, sure the leaves are huge and just soaking in it, and alright yeah they treat you like a princess when they hand it to you, their diet coke limed and special. The acidity welcome but it all just read too “buttoned up” to me. Sitting with my date in between stints of crying in the bathroom (which is tres elegante, btw) I think what this salad is missing is charm. This is a salad that couldn’t dance with you, it’d just sit there offering up a limp wrist like “I’m okay”.
Park Avenue Kitchen
514 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10017
Got this to-go, I was in a state. Really I was in a mood because I’d wanted to get lunch with my girl before work but lesbians are notoriously bad at time management, aren’t we? So I opted to grab this $17 caesar and eat it while walking up Lex like a road animal, only because it was just right there though I didn’t deserve it. Onto business: Dressing perfectly thick, lemon confit expressly welcome although no croutons was a crazy vibe.* Really what I needed in this moment was to feel good about my life and it worked, sorta, for only a little bit. Tipped ten percent and felt like a bitch.
*Editors note: The menu does list croutons as an ingredient so maybe they just forgot?
Ukranian East Village Restaurant
140 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003
I will fully acknowledge that this salad is ranked unfairly high. But I don’t know. There’s just something sort of chic about what this salad’s doing. This is the coworker that comes in that no one can figure out, you can’t call her the personality hire because she’s so private, and I guess she’s beautiful when you look at her just right she’s so beautiful. But she’s not getting any work done, that’s for sure. Not quiet quitting but a competently weaponized lackadaisy. Living in her own world, total fantasy, and shouldn’t she be allowed to be? Served by an angry old woman as it should, who will look you in the face when you order it and say “Why?” Just dust on the leaves, what more?
The Odeon
145 W Broadway, New York, NY 10013
OK so I could tell you that each bite was the perfect size. I could tell you that the dressing was masterfully layered, nuanced even. I could go so far as to tell you that it tasted just so nice, rich, etc. But missing parmigiano and it was THROTTLED by SHAVED croutons, which weren’t just not good but actively bad, tarnishing the rest of your bite. So nice in there though, especially the neon-ringed clock and the decadent bathroom, which was a great place to cry for the crying woman I comforted in there. Somehow the bill came out to a hundred dollars and I wanted to [REDACTED].
Grey Dog Chelsea
242 W 16th St, New York, NY 10011
Think I just needed it this day.
Cafe Colette
79 Berry St, Brooklyn, NY 11249
Spring mix providing welcome bitterness. No anchovies were present. Heaps of parm and parm and croutons strange in some ineffable fashion (Update: Maybe just stale). Dressing like what I’d dip a french fry in, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it “Caesar”. Not a bad thing, but a salad shoudn’t exacerbate my base American impulses, you know what I mean? The place is cute, and would set the scene for the perfect lesbian “Power Lunch,” but much like the locale in which it situates (Williamsburg, gag), this salad is well-manicured and eloquently presented, sure, but there’s an underlying falsehood which isn’t fooling anyone (Amendment: Me).
The Commissary at Metrograph
7 Ludlow St, New York, NY 10002
Wanted this to be good more than I’ve ever wanted anything. Needed this salad like a wish. 8pm between a day of hard work and a Spring Breakers/Climax double feature, hadn’t eaten all day and I was so excited when I saw this whole egg structure atop my plate I was buzzing… Needless to say she had everything going for her. I wanted so desperately to tell you that the best Caesar Salad in New York was upstairs at the movie theatre, so much so that I almost convinced myself it was true. But darling, it just isn’t so. There’s a reason the yolk goes in the dressing, not the whites. Your “own take” on a classic only makes a thing different, not good. Croutons were great though and the double feature changed me.
Roberta’s
261 Moore St Brooklyn, NY 11206
Stop telling me to review this salad. This is a Little Gem, NOT a Caesar, and it purports as such. I take these things as given, at their word, and I will not perform the work of invention that the Roberta’s marketing department won’t even attempt. The mint alone should disqualify it (though I did, in fact, enjoy).
Forgetmenot
138 Division St, New York, NY 10002
TBH this is unfairly low despite being a technically very good salad because it just... wasn’t giving Caesar. Dressing not creamy at all it was olive oil and anchovies and though I love a full fish moment it needed the egg yolk and mustard babe!!! Parm will not save you.
Warren Street Hotel
86 Warren St, New York, NY 10007
At $65 for two salads (sans protein, btw) this was just disappointing. Yes, the feeling was immaculate in there but the Caesar was not hitting. Loved the size of the leaves and the amount of parmigiano was fine, but I’m not a fan of when they use breadcrumbs as the croutons it make me feel dirty, and though there were definitiely fish in the room where the salad happened, I do prefer a full anchovy approach to whatever you’d call this.
Mottley Kitchen
402 E 140th St, Bronx, NY 10454
This is an OK Caesar which is remarkable for the Bronx but definitely one where the dressing comes out of a storebought bottle, and I’ll say I was thrown off by the grape tomatoes, because, like, what?
The Roxy Hotel
2 6th Ave, New York, NY 10013
Bland! Forgettable! Blasphemous!
The Oven’s Slice
84 Rivington Street, Manhattan, NY 10002
You know what you’re doing here. This is a pizza shop’s Caesar, and it’s what you expected. Roughchopped thinstrip bullshit lettuce, a thousand croutons, lightly dusted with salty parm and doused in what I’m pretty sure was Newman’s own (that’s right, “Italian” dressing), all in a cardboard container even though you’re sitting there, at the table, with a slightly more well adjusted friend who had the decency to get a Margherita slice (which was, admittedly, pretty good).
Wyckoff Heights Medical Center
374 Stockholm St, Brooklyn, NY 11237
Well. This is not the post-overdose return to normalcy you thought it might be. Plastic, Ken’s dressing in the packet, and you can barely hold the fork with the multiple IV’s running into your hand, of all places. It doesn’t crunch when you bite back into it, in fact you’re not even sure your teeth made it all the way through. Rolling around in your mouth with the croutons you can’t keep down anymore you’re crying again anyways. You were so grateful to still be alive, before this. Now you‘re not so sure. And your friends are all there and they’re crying. And the people you’ll never see again find out and they’re all crying, too. And this salad’s so slippery nothing it’s not gonna soak that up, not even without the dressing. Should’ve stuck to the fruit plate.
Domino’s
Guest Review by Lily Moskowitz
Demoralizing. First of all, you have to mix it yourself, in a container that is more packaging than contents. The lettuce is already wilting, the croutons are basically apologizing in their plastic ag, the parmesan shreds could be scrap rubber for all I know. Imagine you’ve already done the drunk thing and ordered a pizza and then you have to toss 4-5 leaves of week old Romaine in watered down ranch. All you wanted was something to lighten everyone’s load. You feel shame. We do not order Domino’s for the Caesar but what we would like is a decent complement to the main course. Genuinely unbecoming to the genre.
La Lanterna di Vittorio
129 MacDougal St, New York, NY 10012
No Caesar because they “don’t have the dressing” oh you’re telling me there’s no parmigiano reggiano and lemons in the back??? Kill yourself. At least try to placate me. Don’t order the caprese out of protest.
Editors note: You Will Be Disappointed.