Leon’s Opens in Manhattan From the Anton’s Restaurant Team | Eater NY

"A new Southern Italian restaurant at 817 Broadway, near East 12th Street in Greenwich Village opened after a two‑year buildout and protracted lease negotiations; the space was a former kitchen-and-bath showroom found during the pandemic after a fan of the owners’ previous spot steered them to it. The owners, Natalie Johnson and Nick Anderer—who met when Anderer was chef and partner at Maialino and Marta and Johnson was the sommelier at Marta—chose to honor Johnson’s great-grandfather, Leon, who emigrated from Alexandria, Egypt, to Naples, then the U.S., in the project’s name as a counterpart to Anton’s, which was named after Anderer’s great-great-grandfather. The construction process was iterative and detail-obsessed: at one site visit Anderer said, “I don’t know if there will be enough clearance for the table with this column here,” prompting tape measures and the contractor’s suggestion, “We can shave an inch or two off if it’s too close for comfort.” Anderer acknowledged the uniqueness of each opening: “There is no blueprint for building a restaurant.” As he put it about running the project, “As owner-operators, we want to control everything, but we can’t,” adding that “You have to trust your team, especially the construction crew.” The bureaucratic maze required permits from the State Liquor Authority, Department of Buildings, Department of Health and more, plus display of over 50 mandated signs — from “Employees Must Wash Hands” to kitchen allergy advisories — and unexpected costs, such as rerouting ventilation around immovable pipes that significantly inflated expenses; by the delayed September target the budget was, Johnson said, “down to its barest remains.” Starting from raw space allowed Anderer to build a dream kitchen more than twice the size of their prior one and Johnson to design a 3,000-bottle wine cellar; they commissioned frescoes, selected lighting and ADA-compliant ramps, finalized uniforms (white shirts, dark denim, champagne-colored crocheted ties), and tightened branding across matchbook covers and check presenters. Menu development involved travel to Cairo, Alexandria, Abruzzo, Campania, and Sicily to trace culinary overlaps between Egypt and Southern Italy; dishes explicitly mentioned include tuffoli pasta with crab and coriander, a trio of lamb preparations, pilaf al Hakim (inspired by Johnson’s family cookbook), and Anderer’s year of recipe testing produced offerings such as escarole salad ($21), spaghetti with bottarga ($24), pasta con le sarde ($25), whole fish, Italian or Egyptian ($69, $39 for half), and brick chicken Baharat ($35). Johnson assembled a wine list emphasizing Italy, southern France, and Spain alongside herbal teas and classic cocktails. Operational headaches continued late in the process — FDNY approval slipped, Con Ed’s gas hookup threatened the holiday season (Anderer had a backup plan to “install an electric oven and induction burners and swap them out when the gas goes live”), and labor recruiting proved arduous: after 150 interviews they aimed to hire 80 staff with two weeks of training, with particular difficulty staffing breakfast shifts. Leadership for the new kitchen and floor will come from Anton’s chef de cuisine George Riddle and general manager Drew Arisco. As the owners prepared for friends-and-family tastings and a soft opening, Anderer summed up the effort as “like playing the hardest team sport you’ve ever played in your life, and every day is a new game against a different opponent,” and Johnson added, “Anyone who does this, truly does it for the love of the game.”" - Kathleen Squires