"Probably no L.A. food subject has been so much debated as the origin of the French dip, and the controversy is not about to die because there's no evidence to settle the matter. One story is that the French dip was invented at another downtown restaurant, Cole's P.E. Buffet, in 1908. In this narrative, a cook dipped a roll in gravy to accommodate a customer who had a hard time chewing because of his bad teeth. Cole's is still around too, though it's closed at the moment. It was sold last year, and well-known chef Neal Fraser (Grace, BLD) plans to tweak Cole's French dip sandwich when the place reopens in the fall. 'We want it to be at least as good as Phillipe's,' he says.
"Philippe's, for the record, has never had to rethink its dip."
Charles Perry in the Los Angeles Times marks the one-hundredth anniversary of Philippe the Original, one of L.A.'s oldest restaurants and the home of the "French Dipped Sandwich."
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