Leon's
Natalie Johnson's great-grandfather Leon Hakim left Alexandria for Naples and then for America. The menu here is what she and Nick Anderer found where Egypt and southern Italy overlap.
Why go
Anderer was chef and partner at Maialino and Marta. Johnson was the sommelier at Marta. They met there. Their first room together was Anton's in 2019, an old-guard New York restaurant. They travelled to Cairo, Alexandria, Abruzzo, Campania and Sicily to build the card. Johnson also put in a cellar of three thousand bottles, running through Italy, southern France and Spain. I haven't read a critic on the cooking yet.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the pilaf al Hakim, which comes out of Johnson's family cookbook. The tuffoli arrives with crab and coriander. The whole fish ran $69 in November 2024, $39 for a half. Brick chicken baharat was $35 and pasta con le sarde $25.1
- Avoid: a weekend if you want the full card. Saturday and Sunday are brunch.
What locals & experts say
- Nick Anderer to Eater NY (20 November 2024):
There is no blueprint for building a restaurant. I wish I could copy-paste timelines and checklists from past openings, but each one is vastly different.
1 - The kitchen and the floor: Anton's chef de cuisine George Riddle and general manager Drew Arisco moved over to run this one.1
Good to know
- Timing: breakfast, lunch and dinner served straight through Monday to Friday.
- Booking: book for dinner. The bar and the sidewalk tables take the overflow in warm months.
- The door: 817 Broadway, on the southwest corner of East 12th Street, just south of Union Square.
Verdict
could-visit — The card is half Egyptian and that is the half to order across. Let Johnson pick the bottle. Breakfast is on the menu because the lease required it.