The French Dipped
A sandwich may contain multitudes.
I have just started writing a little column over on Medium called The Los Angeles Letter, which will just be short pieces about my favorite things in LA, punctuated, once a month or so by longer essays like this one. The best stuff will make it here near the end of each month.
A sandwich is a wondrous and powerful thing. Encased in an envelope of bread, it may contain multitudes. It may be humble and sturdy, offering little more than the power to satiate hunger, or elevated to gastronomic heights by chefs who wax nostalgic over some comfortable memory. It is true, I think, that our experience of food is the evocation of memory and few meals fire so many neurons as a sandwich does.
One of my early sandwich memories was the French Dip. My grandfather and father made these in our family restaurant and I ate them ravenously. Thinly sliced roast beef, piled on a french roll that has been dipped in the juices from the pan, sometimes with American cheese. He started a counter diner in San Pedro called Tony’s Cafe just after the War. The French Dip is an LA creation. My Grandfather came to the US during World War II, but “Philippe The Original” restaurant has been serving them up since 1918 or so, about 10 years after they opened.
There is another self-proclaimed contender to the throne of French Dip creator. Coles, which also opened in 1908 has claimed the title for itself. An EATER article claims to have settled the debate in favor of Philippes. Coles is a solid place to visit, despite its hipsterfication and speakeasy in the back. But its French Dip pales next to the original.
The namesake founder of the restaurant, Philippe Mathieu, sold the business to the Martin brothers after 20 years. Philippe claimed to have created the sandwich by accident, having dropped a french roll into a pan of juice. Some have speculated that the Frenchman named the sandwich with a double entendre, as a French Dip was first a woman’s fashion trend, where belts were worn below the waist (scandalous). Long before Mathieu came along, the area was home to LA’s Frenchtown - the first capital of fine dining. But like most things Los Angeles, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot. Frenchtown is gone, like the original Philippes, which was relocated to its present location in 1951. The original location was moved to make way for the 101 freeway, which flows as steadily as the mighty LA River. Interesting perhaps only to my family, but my grandfather’s restaurant was also taken by the government to make way for - an office building. Meh progress.
That Philippes exists in a town famous for reinvention and redevelopment is a sort of Los Angeles miracle. Phillipes is really a deli, not a restaurant. You line up to order at the counter from one of a dozen or so women carvers working the counter, you pay and your food is placed on a plastic cafeteria tray. There is no app. There is no text messaging when your order is ready. You will wait. You choose a dipped sandwich - beef, pastrami, turkey, lamb, pork, or ham. I stick with the beef, but vegans may wish to try the turkey. Order single-dipped, double-dipped, or wet. Wet seems more like an Italian Beef thing, where the entire sandwich is dipped into the juice. I find it best avoided and stick with a double-dip. After all, this ain’t no disco, no need to show off. Cheese is an option, if you wish (from the menu) - SWISS .80, AMERICAN .45, JACK .60, BLEU .80, CHEDDAR .60, PEPPER JACK .60 OR PROVOLONE .60
You can augment your Dip with some fairly traditional deli sides - mac and potato salad, creamy slaw - all solid. The pickled egg, done in a beet brine is the thing though, and its alien pink-purple color looks great on your Instagram page.
The line at Philippes was once a thing of beautiful chaos. There were no ropes or methods of demarcation to guide you to the counter. You just sort of gently mashed in together and politely nudged each other forward, like the pit at a middle-aged punk show. There were also two entrances, so the queue filled from different and inequitable directions. Covid protocols ended that. Like USC admissions, the side door is locked. And a traditional rope guides you along to the next available counter server. I will admit that this bit of remodeling made me panic. It starts with a well-organized line, then next they bring the kiosks. I just checked and you can order to-go online, so perhaps Rome is falling after all.
Philippes is not particularly well-located for access on the corner of Alameda and Ord, but it butts up against history. It is surrounded by Chinatown, Olvera Street, Union Station, and the Italian Hall, once the heart of LA’s Little Italy and now home to the Italian American Museum of Los Angeles, a place you should visit and I hope you will. It’s also close to Dodger Stadium, not far from USC and the Coliseum, and on the way to the Rose Bowl for the 7 people who regularly attend UCLA football games.
I have been to going to Philippes for so long and have gone so often that I no longer remember not going there. Each time I return, I am hit with flashes of memory of USC games and Dodger games and pre and post-game sandwiches. I have been there with my mother and father and my grandfather, I have been there with friends, and I have been there often enough, alone. It is a near-perfect place to eat alone because the cross-section of the universe is on display to entertain you. There are tourists and lawyers, commuters and DWP workers, Dodger fans, and some poor visiting fans, trying to cover their jerseys. There is nostalgia in the best way possible - anchored in history but buzzing and hurdling through the new century.
Standing in line once with my mother that buzz came to a standstill when a little girl in line began to sing an aria at the bequest of one of the carvers behind the counter. The line fell silent and I want to lie to you right now and tell you a ray of sunlight landed on her as she sang, but it did not. I have no idea why this memory clings, this image of a little girl singing on the sawdust floor, but it does.
That most Los Angeles movie, Chinatown, features a great scene, set in Philippes. Jake Gittes, played by Jack Nicholson, meets Evelyn Mulwray, played by Faye Dunaway, for the first time. The scene takes place in the restaurant's dining room, where Gittes is enjoying a meal before he is approached by Mulwray. The scene is one of the most iconic in film history.
The last thing you will remember about Philippe’s is the little pots of horseradish mustard scattered about the communal tables (disclosure: they are in squeeze bottles now) that you will use on your Dip. This elixir is a jolt to the brain. It hurts so good. The esteemable Jonathan Gold (RIP) once wrote of Philippes, "All around the restaurant, you can see nostrils flare when people hit little depth charges of Philippe's hot mustard in their sandwiches."
The best reason to visit may be this quote taken from the restaurant’s website, written shamefully, by a New Yorker.
MacDonald Harris of the New York Times (“Real food in L.A.,” March 1990) wrote, “There is an air of camaraderie among the customers, a kind of unspoken friendliness and consideration that’s rare in a big city . . . The customers are people of all kinds: shoppers, residents of nearby Chinatown, businessmen, Amtrak workers from the station, and people who have been coming here for years and are now bringing their children. More than any other place I can think of, Philippe’s typifies the democratic spirit of Los Angeles . . .”
Go. Just go.
Philippe The Original
1001 N. Alameda St. Los Angeles, CA 90012
213-628-3781
Open Daily 6 a.m. – 10 p.m.
I remember your Grandfather Ante at Antes Restaurant. He wore a flower behind his ear. This was amazing.
I am 65 years old now, but I was 14 years old then. My sisters were servers there. He hired Croatians who became our good friends.
Great memories
Marta
Ante, could not agree more, makes me want to go right now!