THE ANATOMY OF JACK LALANNE’S FAVORITE SALAD AT JOHN’S GRILL

Join us as we go into the kitchen and behind the bar at some of San Francisco’s best-known restaurants and bars to break down the anatomy of their most famous offerings.

“Who’s Jack LaLanne?”

Diners at John’s Grill in Union Square often ask this question. The long-running restaurant is best known for its connection with the Dashiell Hammett novel The Maltese Falcon and the subsequent 1941 film starring Humphrey Bogart. But Jack LaLanne’s Favorite Salad is another menu highlight with a celebrity connection — though unfamiliar customers often ask if LaLanne is a former owner or a relative of the Konstin family, which owns the popular restaurant. Third-generation co-owner John Konstin, Jr. explains LaLanne was the original fitness influencer of the United States, on par with Jane Fonda’s Workout era of popularity in the 1980s. “He was on that level, where he was on the TV, he was talking nutrition, he was talking about working out,” Konstin says. “He was in the public eye doing cool events that had to do with getting fit and getting in shape, and he was a movement that influenced so many people that our generation knows, like Arnold Schwarzenegger and people of that caliber.”

These days, LaLanne is less of a household name despite hosting the first fitness television program, The Jack LaLanne Show, and earning the title of the Godfather of Fitness. But there are modern reminders of his impact, such as the growth of gyms following his opening of the first modern health spa in downtown Oakland at 15th Street and Broadway in 1936. Additional curiosity about LaLanne should be piqued by the fictionalized portrayal of LaLanne in the Jerry Seinfeld-directed Netflix film, Unfrosted, which debuted on May 3. The movie is an “absurdist mash-up of fact and fiction” about the creation of the Pop-Tart and features a star-studded cast, including actor James Marsden, who portrays LaLanne.

But San Francisco has a special tie to LaLanne’s legacy. The city was the site of many of his showy fitness stunts, including swimming handcuffed from Alcatraz to Fisherman’s Wharf while towing a 1,000-pound boat and swimming the length of the Golden Gate Bridge underwater with 140 pounds of equipment and two air tanks. During his time in San Francisco, LaLanne also struck up a friendship with John’s Grill founder Gus Konstin, and he often stopped at the restaurant when he was in town — including for those stunts. The menu then was “a Bible,” Kostin says, meaning there were 10 chicken dishes, 10 pork dishes, and 10 steak dishes — more on par with the Cheesecake Factory’s lengthy list of offerings, than the more concise menu it is today. LaLanne, meanwhile, was more than happy to support his friend’s restaurant, finding high-protein things to eat on the menu like calamari dore, a large-format calamari steak. Eventually, however, LaLanne asked if there was anything else on the menu for him to eat. “One day he looked at my grandfather, and he was like, ‘Listen, Gus, I love this place. But there’s not a lot here for me that I can eat without feeling guilty about it,’” Konstin says. “So, my grandfather took that to heart.”

Konstin says his grandfather — “the absolute hospitality guy” — took LaLanne’s words seriously and set out to create a dish fit for the fitness buff. He spent days in the kitchen trying to figure out what he could make LaLanne. “He was like a mad scientist,” Konstin says. His grandfather set out to make something low-calorie, high-protein, nutritional, and “of the land of San Francisco.” The result? A salad made of mixed greens, portabello and white mushrooms, Roma tomatoes, avocado, bay shrimp, and Dungeness crab. The salad dressing was an inspired mix of two John’s Grill house dressings: blue cheese and Italian vinaigrette, both Konstin family recipes. The vinaigrette’s sharp, lemony, citrus flavor cuts through the heavier blue cheese dressing. “It’s not the healthiest of dressings for a fitness guru, but he absolutely loved it,” Konstin says.

Making the salad begins with a ladle of vinaigrette and blue cheese dressing over a mound of chopped tomato, bay shrimp, and crab in a salad bowl. That’s all tossed together before the greens and mushrooms are added to the bowl, then mixed to coat every ingredient. Staff then plate the salad, top it with more crab and shrimp, plus a sliced avocado half, as a showstopper element on top. The next time LaLanne entered the restaurant, Konstin’s grandfather stopped him from ordering and brought out the salad. LaLanne loved it. “He would come into the restaurant after that and would say, ‘Gus, let me get my regular salad,’” Konstin says. “It just became this thing, and the kitchen knew about it, everybody knew about it — it was the Jack LaLanne salad.”

The salad remained an off-menu item for a while after its invention in the late 1980s, but eventually, the family decided to place it permanently on the menu to honor LaLanne for being a great friend and customer. “If it was good enough for a fitness guru,” Konstin says, “then it’s good enough for you.”

John’s Grill (63 Ellis Street) is open from 11:45 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week.

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