No matter where or how you came of age, you probably have those dishes that you associate with your time as a young, dumb, naive human trying to figure out exactly what you want to do in life. For me, I went to UC Berkeley in the mid-2000s, and like many other students, a large amount of my diet disproportionately consisted of pizza, which I’d attempt to offset with an exceedingly large bowl of salad. I figured the two would cancel each other out, leaving one perfectly balanced and healthy college kid. For pizza, there was, of course, the Cheese Board and its daily changing pie, and West Coast Pizza on University, where the move is to get greasy, garlicky cheese sticks. But the salad spot was always cult classic Cafe Intermezzo, a.k.a. Cafe Mezzo on Telegraph.

Called the Chef’s Salad, a giant wooden bowl gets filled to the brim with a mix of romaine and iceberg, plus a laundry list of toppings: boiled eggs, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, avocado, tomato, carrots, cucumbers, croutons and sprouts (oh the sprouts!), and, of course, your choice of protein to pile on. Served on top is a giant soft slice of fresh-baked sunflower-seeded honey wheat bread that perfumed the regular long lines at lunch. I can still hear the sounds of wooden tongs rhythmically thumping against the bowls as staffers theatrically assembled my salad to order behind the counter.

The salad from Cafe Mezzo, which has been around since 1983, has inspired countless copycat recipes online and even made its way onto menus at other restaurants. It is beloved by Berkeleyans all around, past and present, especially students and nostalgic alums, who would line up during lunch and in between classes to get their salad fix that could last two meals for less than the price of a burrito. When I was there, it cost less than $10, though it most recently was a still very reasonable $13.50. “Eating the Intermezzo salad was the only healthy thing I did in four years of going to school,” says fellow food writer, former Chronicle columnist and Cal alum Chris Ying. “I haven’t eaten it since, and I know that no salad can be as good as that salad has been in my memory.”

But what really made Intermezzo’s salad the Intermezzo salad was the poppy seed dressing. It was light yet creamy, slightly sweet and a touch tart, and the tiny poppy seeds added little punchy pops throughout. I was devastated when I heard the cafe had burned down back in 2011, elated when I heard it had reopened in 2017 after six long years (hashtag permitting problems), and devastated once again to hear that it has temporarily paused operations in March because of COVID.

I was back to salad elation when I saw a salad on the menu at PizzaHacker’s new location at Tam Junction in Mill Valley the other month named after Intermezzo, at $8 for a medium or $15 for a bigger one. Like me, PizzaHacker’s owner Jeff Krupman has spent time in Berkeley. And like countless others, he fell for the Intermezzo salad. “It’s my favorite thing in the world to eat,” he says. “I felt virtuous; I felt better after eating it. It was satisfying as a burger could be.”

Krupman moved to San Francisco in 1994 from Ohio to research burrito spots for his own venture on the East Coast, and he enrolled in some business classes at UC Berkeley Extension in the process. He also lived in Berkeley for a short while in the early 2000s, which is when he fell in love with Intermezzo. “It was healthy, and it was cheap,” Krupman says. “Waiting in line there was a brotherhood — the people that know that salad, those are my people. It’s an experience.”

He also obviously fell in love with California and stayed here, eventually ditching the idea of burritos for tech, and then ditching tech for pizza, starting his pizza pop-up in 2009.

When Krupman opened the first PizzaHacker on Mission Street in 2013, he put his version of Intermezzo’s salad on the menu from day one. It’s gone through various iterations over the years, but the newest version I ate at the Tam Junction location a few weeks ago contains a combination of Little Gems, Castelfranco olives and radicchio for a bit of bitterness, watermelon radish, cucumbers and rainbow carrots for color and crunch, sliced hard-boiled egg, chickpeas, a dusting of paprika, a heaping of nostalgia and most importantly, his version of the poppy seed dressing.

Krupman’s dressing is not quite the same as Intermezzo’s. It’s a little thinner and less sweet, using honey as the sweetener, Dijon as the emulsifier, and red wine vinegar to give both acidity and a rosy pink hue. It doesn’t have egg or mayonnaise since he wanted to add something vegan and gluten-free on the menu without taking anything off. Here is a recipe for Krupman’s version, which he has shared so you can make it at home.

“It’s the best of Berkeley to me,” he says of the Intermezzo salad.

PizzaHacker, 3299 Mission St., San Francisco. 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday, and until 9 p.m. Friday. Takeout and delivery. PizzaHacker @ the Junction, 226 Shoreline Highway, Mill Valley. 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Open for patio and takeout. http://thepizzahacker.com.

Omar Mamoon is a San Francisco writer and cookie guy. Instagram: @ommmar Email: food@sfchronicle.com

PizzaHacker’s version of Intermezzo’s Poppy Seed Salad Dressing

Makes 1 cup

Jeff Krupman’s version of the salad dressing is a bit thinner and egg-free for the vegans. He says you can add a dollop of mayonnaise or an egg yolk if you’d like to make it extra creamy.

2 cloves finely chopped garlic

2 tablespoons finely chopped shallots

5 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon honey

Salt and pepper to taste

¾ cup neutral oil, such as canola or grape seed

¼ cup olive oil

2 teaspoons poppy seeds

Instructions: In a large bowl, slowly whisk together the garlic, shallots, vinegar, mustard, honey and salt and pepper. Slowly add in the oils while whisking to make an emulsified dressing. Season to taste with more salt and pepper then stir in poppy seeds.