Philippe the Original (Los Angeles)

On my second trip to Los Angeles for work, I caught a Lyft ride at the airport and went straight to another famous, historic L.A. restaurant, luggage and all, before even checking in at my hotel or reporting to work.  I had done my research like any good librarian, so I planned to go to Philippe the Original (https://www.philippes.com/), the inventors of the French dipped sandwich.  Founded in 1908, Philippe the Original has probably changed very little over the decades.  The prices have surely gone up in the past century and change, but not nearly as much as you would think.

You order and pay at the counter, and then the very patient servers assemble you a tray, cafeteria-style, while doubling as cashiers.  I miss cafeteria-style restaurants.  We went to a bunch when I was a kid, from Morrison’s in the mall to the old K-Mart cafeteria, but you don’t see this much anymore, aside from some casual Latin restaurants like Orlando’s Lechonera El Barrio.  Philippe the Original also has a diner feel to it, since it also serves breakfast (and Los Angeles is a big diner city).  But I was not here for breakfast, dear readers.  Oh no, I was a man with a shopping list.  With an agenda, even.

The main draw is the French-dipped sandwiches, which come on a delicious French roll.  You can also get them on white, wheat, rye, or sourdough bread, but please don’t do this.  You can get the sandwiches single-dipped, double-dipped, or “wet” in au jus, so I opted for a single dip as a first-timer, with an extra ramekin of jus on the side for this Jew.  You can choose between sliced beef, pork, lamb, New York pastrami, ham, or turkey, and even though I’m sure you can’t go wrong with any of those, I had a hard time choosing.  I asked, fully expecting to be told no, if I could get two kinds of meat on my sandwich, and the nice lady said of course!  I couldn’t get half the roll with one and the other half with the other meat, but I could definitely get two different meats stacked upon each other.  Now we were talking!  I asked what she recommended, and she said of the six, she would narrow it down to beef, lamb, and pastrami.  Now, I already had plans to meet friends at one of L.A.’s most iconic deli institutions, so I figured I would save the pastrami for that later meal.  Beef and lamb for the win!   I also added on bleu cheese, which pairs so well with red meat, but rarely makes an appearance in sandwiches and even less often as a thick slice.  It got surprisingly melty on there, between the warm roll, hot meat, and hot jus.  You can see the light brown lines in the cross-section of this roll above the cheese, and that is where they dipped the roll in the jus.  This was a huge, thick, hearty sandwich.  The beef and lamb were both very tender, but I preferred whichever one was sliced thinner (the beef, I think, which surprised me, since I always gravitate toward lamb when it is an option).  That purpley-pink thing in the corner was a pickled egg, one of many accoutrements I ordered with my two-meat sandwich, fished out of a big jar on the counter.  I couldn’t resist!  It was so vinegary and tangy and good.  I love pickled eggs, but never  thought to employ beet juice when I make my own at home.  Now I know… and knowing is half the battle!

Believe it or not, Los Angeles is a big chili city.  Angelenos love putting chili on hot dogs and burgers and serving it in diners, so I figured the meat-centric Philippe the Original would serve a good cup of chili.  They did.  Like everything else, it was pretty classic — no frills, not fancy, just mildly spicy, and of course they knew better than to add beans.  If you imagine a cup of chili from a diner, you’ve got it.  It might not win any awards in the Terlingua Chili  Cookoff, but this is quintessential L.A. chili.  And to me, that makes it quintessential American chili.   

Like any classic diner or cafeteria, Philippe the Original also had a refrigerated glass case full of tempting pies, cakes, baked apples (talk about old-school!), and prepared salads: cole slaw, macaroni and potato salad.  As much as I would have loved to try all three of those, I was already going a little wild.

I chose the macaroni salad, which normally edges out potato salad for me, and I chose wisely.  It was a simple, mayo-based macaroni salad with a slight crunch from celery (or green bell pepper?) and a tangy sweetness.  It reminded me of a macaroni salad you would get at a mid-century lunch counter, maybe in a drugstore or even a department store.  I miss those places too, and they were already 99% phased out by the time I was a kid in the ’80s.

Each table had a squeeze bottle of a relatively thin, horseradish-heavy hot mustard, that I applied to my wonderful beef, lamb, and bleu cheese sandwich after taking a few unadorned bites as a control.  It was an excellent mustard that complemented the rich, salty, juicy sandwich perfectly.  I noticed they sell it in bottles, but as much as I would have loved to bring one home, I do not check bags, and I knew TSA would confiscate it.  Regular readers know my obsession with mustards and other condiments (such as my Cutting the Mustard reviews), but at least I got to try it in the restaurant.

Also, I got the most delightful little glass of lemonade for something like 95 cents.  When I saw the price, I didn’t know how big the glass would be, but it was wee.  I guess this is like portion sizes were like back in the day, before Big Gulps and whatnot.  Really refreshing lemonade, though, especially after all that salty food and waking up at 4 AM for a flight.

I might have looked like a big weirdo, wheeling my roll-aboard bag through Philippe the Original, but I knew it would have to be my first stop in L.A. or I wouldn’t be able to make it back later.  I’m so glad I did, because it was truly awesome.  It lived up to all the hype I had read online, to say nothing of  passing mentions and sightings in L.A.-based TV shows like Bosch.  I love these historic restaurants that have been doing the same thing for decades, sometimes lasting a century or more, because they are that damn good.  Los Angeles is full of them, and I look forward to exploring more on future work trips (and eventually getting around to reviewing everything from this last visit).  If you appreciate a good French dip sandwich, try to make a pilgrimage to the creator some day.  The originator, the O.G. — Philippe the Original.