Joshua Skenes’s Highly Anticipated Restaurant Leopardo Is Now Open | Eater LA
"When I visited Joshua Skenes's casual new Los Angeles restaurant, which opened May 14, I found that his aim is simple: he wants people to have a good time while serving ingredients with the same high standards as his other restaurants. Known for founding Saison and for his work at Angler, Skenes has distilled a quest for top-flight, often wild or hard-to-find products into Leopardo’s pared-back cooking — think ocean tilefish treated simply with buttery olive oil, lemon, salt and seasoning, and daily-catch-driven plates such as Dungeness crab with mafaldine, grilled whitefish, spot prawn crudo and sea urchin. Pizza here was the result of hundreds of tests, ranging from a puffy-crusted neo-Neapolitan to a “neo-Minato” style inspired by Tokyo, made with high-hydration dough, West Coast flours and full wild fermentation that yields a light, sweet crust without sourness. There are nods to Angler, but Skenes wants Leopardo to stand on its own: a $220 caviar course arrives with springwater caviar, a polenta waffle and barbecue maple syrup; elk tartare with bone marrow comes with grilled bread; cold noodles in a fermented tomato broth are served inside a hollowed sea urchin shell (a presentation tweak that broadened its appeal); and heartier items include a Beijing-esque whole roast duck, wild boar or pheasant parmesan and a grilled free-range ribeye — Skenes calls the crackling duck the best domesticated duck he’s tasted. Dessert’s “soft cream” is, he says, multiple times better than Angler’s soft serve — pure milk-and-cream flavor, silken in texture, served with honeycomb with rum and Biscoff cookies made into spent-sourdough sandwiches. The space retains much of the old La Brea Bakery bones (cleaned brick walls), the front counter is now a raw bar and a back patio will eventually seat about 30; Skenes is aiming for a neighborhood joint even as the casual presentation sometimes clashes with the food’s ambition. Menu descriptions are minimal and the cocktail list offers little detail, but staff will gladly explain dishes — Skenes even tried to downplay his own name on the site — and practical details are straightforward: Leopardo is at 460 S. La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90036, open with full service from 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. (pizza and drinks later), walk-ins accepted, and reservations open seven days in advance each morning at 9 a.m." - Matthew Kang
