I have often wondered if all the glitz and glamour of old Hollywood was a defensive response for those fleeing war, bigotry, or some dark past. So many came to LA to live in the love and light amongst the ocean and the palm trees.
That LA story explains how a Spanish immigrant arrived in Los Angeles as a stowaway, befriended stars like Frank Sinatra, James Dean, and Marylin Monroe, and went on to become the "King of Beverly Hills" by transforming a simple salad into another LA icon.
Jean Leon (nee Ángel Ceferino Carrión Madrazo) worked at the Villa Capri, owned by Frank Sinatra and Joe Dimaggio, where he met and grew close with James Dean. So close that Dean would become his son's godfather. Dean agreed to back Jean Leon in his own place across from the Villa Capri. Sadly, Dean would die crashing his Porsche in Cholame, California, at the age of 24. Leon would persevere and open the famed restaurant he named La Scala in 1956.
He served Italian dishes to stars like Marilyn Monroe, Zsa Zsa Gabor, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Marlon Brando, and Robert Wagner. Monroe was such a regular at La Scala that Jean Leon named her favorite dish "Fettuccine a lo Marilyn," which he delivered to her Brentwood home on the night she died.
Today, shy of 70 years later, the menu still offers Italian-American classics like chicken parmesan and penne alla vodka. But it is a simple salad created by Jean Leon in the 1950s that is having a moment today. The "Original Chop Salad" is just Lettuce, Salami, Mozzarella, and Marinated Garbanzo Beans, all tossed in "Leon Dressing" (a secret recipe, which may be a red wine vinaigrette with grated parmesan). This is the salad Presidents Kennedy and Reagan enjoyed, which has gone viral on social media lately.
Of course, other chopped salads came first - the Cobb made famous a generation before at the Brown Derby and the McCarthy at the Beverly Hills Polo Lounge, but none have inspired so many others. Salads are so often chopped today that one can imagine some pretentious celebrity sending any dish with whole lettuce leaves back to the kitchen.
I ate lunch at La Scala with my parents in the 1980s. My parents ordered the famous salad. There were other celebrities there, I'm sure, but I noticed Victoria Principal. Ms. Principal was at the height of her "Dallas" television fame, but I audibly noted the size of her head, which seemed unusually small to me. My mother was mortified, and my father fixated on his salad, which he discussed with our waiter. In all fairness to Ms. Principal, it may not have been the size of her head, but her blown-out hairstyle, which I'm sure was fashionable in the era—apologies to Ms. Principal, who is 74 years old this year.
When my father returned to the kitchen in our family restaurant, he promptly stole the chopped salad, which became a perennial customer favorite. Ours had more salami and cheese in it, making it hardy enough for our customers, who worked for a living. I liked it with our housemade bleu cheese dressing tossed in with the vinaigrette. A generation of customers could delude themselves into thinking they ate a healthy lunch because it was called a salad.
Wearing "city clothes" (for me - pants and a collared shirt) and visiting the fine dining rooms around Los Angeles was a hobby for my folks and one I highly recommend. When I eat around the City today, I don't know that city clothes are necessary any longer - you may not even need clothing at all. It seems that a variety of pajama-like athleisurewear will suffice.
La Scala still looks much like I imagine it did in 1956. The brick walls and stained wood posts and beams are still there. The curved booths of red leather conjur up a more elegant time, no longer our own. It's the confidence of quiet luxury. La Scala doesn't scream in your face, it's old enough to know better.
Jean Leon went on to serve the stars, six Presidents, and countless film moguls; he opened other locations and started a legendary eponymous winery in Spain. He died in 1996 and spent his final days sailing his yacht "La Scala d'Amore"—the staircase of love. Jean Leon once said he tried to make his famous salad at home, and it wasn't the same. All the chopping the chefs do is love, he said. His daughter, Gigi Leon, runs La Scala with that same love today. Just go.
xAP
“It seems that a variety of pajama-like athleisurewear will suffice.” - incredible!!! 😂
Ante, great read , plus brings back a lot of great memories, as I haven't been back to La Scala since the Big 80's! Now I'm hankering for that Ante's blue cheese dressing! While your Uncle Tony was hovering over me, "want some more" numerous times, as I kindly declined knowingly I had a huge plate of "overnight pasta" about to arrive!