Leopardo - Hancock Park

I like the art photos! They remind me of this crane that we used to see every time we left Republique. The shape of that crane, set against the night sky, always captivated me.

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When I last when it was pretty busy, but theyā€™re not like slammed from opening to close, like it should be. Iā€™d love more entree options than a roast chicken. I miss the grilled tilefish. I didnā€™t love the steaks but Iā€™m sure they were popular. Also, post a menu on the website please!

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yay! this is new lol

Tonightā€™s menu

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Oysters 36/72 are for 6/12? Is that the new going rate in LA? I thought most of the high end places in LA were ~$4 to $4.50 an oyster? Inflation?

Thatā€™s the leopardo ā€œcasualā€ rate lol

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sergio in da house

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They have strange way to price dishes - on a menu photo 7 days ago the wild boar meatballs were $48 (which looked quite overpriced for 4 meatballs) and now the same dish is $33 ?

Cali-presse has changed prices more times than I can count. Itā€™s just how they operate. And another example of poor management IMO.

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Speaking of poor management, I walked in around 730 tonight, for a party of one, without a reservation. The restaurant was half-empty. I asked to sit at a table. They said that they didnā€™t have any tables available. (They did ā€” about half a restaurantā€™s worth.) So I asked if I could sit on the far left side of the counter, where itā€™s quieter. They instead sat me right in front of the pass. I then sat there for about 10 minutes waiting for someone to acknowledge me, let alone take my order. No one did ā€” all the while, chefs and servers were at the pass, finishing and taking out food. I walked out. The service has been hit-or-miss for me. Tonight was a miss.

The pizza is great ā€” among the best in LA. But I donā€™t understand why my meals here canā€™t ever be just a normal, regular old dining experience. Itā€™s always something.

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Thatā€™s rough.

It would have cost them nothing to accommodate you on a slower night.

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So weird and just poor service sorry you had that experience

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Were they seating anyone in the empty half of the restaurant or the end of the counter where you wanted to sit?

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Yes.

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Think Iā€™m with @hamburgertuesday, @mzonelli, and @100percentdoghair on Leopardo. For me itā€™s missing a unifying pov or some warmth. Didnā€™t help that they were out of pastas and meatballs at 8:20 on a Friday.

Crudo, Cali - Presse, Hail Satan, and the soft serve. Crudo was refined but not quite Holbox or Dunsmoor albacore. The Cali Presse is what I imagine food tasted like in the 90s - almost there but cloying, missing some smoke or an edge. What else can be said about the pizza? Iā€™d probably like a touch more color on the undercarriage, less sweetness in the sauce, and I donā€™t think itā€™s at Seiā€™s level of fermentation/twang, but itā€™s quite good. And the soft serve is decadent. The rum honey is like the best version of what Iā€™d imagine WASPs eat after Christmas dinner.

Food aside, it felt like the restaurant could give a shit we were eating there. Not hostile but scattered and aloof. Iā€™m not quite on their wavelength. Or rather I can sense the technique, ingredient quality, and care from the kitchen, but it doesnā€™t fully come through in the menu or experience.

*What is up with the Lao Gan Ma pickled chilis they put on everything?

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I like chang a lot. I find him entertaining and interesting. His podcast is unlistenable.

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I donā€™t disagree but listen to the first couple years. He is pretty curious about all sorts of topics and inciteful -he didnā€™t get where he is by being a dummy. How good and interesting he can be makes it that much worse how heā€™s become. Although in some sense I get it you are going to get more listeners by rating candy or ramen.

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I listened to daveā€™s pod way back when, when he was doing the ā€œpre-opening diariesā€ on majordomo. It was good. And dave is a good guest when heā€™s on other pods. But the current pod is bad. As you note, dave is smart, curious, and insightful. which makes it particularly hard to understand why this current version of the pod is so bad.

To loop this back to leopardo: the issues with the format of daveā€™s pod aside, his interview with skenes was a missed opportunity. dave hardly let josh speak. and dave kept cryptically going on and on about how he told josh that heā€™s making a bunch of bad decisions business-wise with the food and menu at leopardo, about how heā€™s making things too hard on himself, about how most people wonā€™t appreciate what heā€™s doing to make the food taste as it good as it can be . . . and then dave compounds the mystery by repeatedly telling the audience that they wonā€™t even understand what he is trying to say in the very interview, because the audience doesnā€™t know enough about food and restaurants to make sense of daveā€™s criticism. dave was right ā€“ i donā€™t know that much about food and restaurants, and i didnā€™t understand what dave was trying to say. which is fine. i wouldnā€™t understand two astrophysicists talking about why the moonā€™s orbit is the way it is. but it seemed like dave was going out of his way to be as intentionally cryptic and mysterious as possible precisely so that the audience didnā€™t learn anything about food and restaurants. Which is unfortunate, because that interview might have been a good opportunity for dave (and josh) to teach us ā€“ including why the food at leopardo is the way it is, and the ways in which leopardo might be doing something different than your ordinary ā€œneighborhood restaurantā€ / ā€œlocal pizza and pasta spot,ā€ even if only subtly and in ways that the average diner might not appreciate. get me to appreciate it! thatā€™s why iā€™m listening to the pod! some of the fun of having face-time with chefs is that you can ask them questions about their food, and theyā€™re often very happy to teach you. the one time that i was lucky enough to go to hayato, brandon was more than happy to tell me everything i ever wanted to know about turnips and their role in japanese cuisine. heck, go to mini-kabob, and armen will tell you exactly what he thinks makes his food ever so slightly different than other ā€œmediterraneanā€ restaurants ā€“ e.g., the unique combo of armenian and egyptian influences.

for what itā€™s worth, daveā€™s thoughts on leopardo were simply inconsistent with my own experience. this sub (including me) has a lot of thoughts on leopardo ā€“ including a lot of criticism. but, at least to me, iā€™ve never read the criticism of leopardo as being that the food tastes bad. or that the food has bad ā€œflavor.ā€ (to be sure, some have said that. and theyā€™re wrong. the food is flat-out good. with the exception of the garden lettuces. my one actual food complaint about leopardo is that the garden lettuces salad should be better. quarter sheets is down the road doing effectively the same salad, and their salad is one of the best dishes in LA.) instead, the criticism has been that ā€“ putting aside how good the food is or can be ā€“ certain operational or business aspects of the restaurant are hard to understand, or could be improved. For example, the menu can be unfocused, the service can be hit-or-miss, the marketing could be better, etc. the issue is that josh is a special talent, weā€™re fortunate in LA to have him, but he (or whoever is running the place business/operations-wise) might be goofing up this restaurant ā€“ and for reasons that seem avoidable.

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I agree on a lot of what you said, except for the salad. Iā€™m a fan. Canā€™t compare to Quarter Sheets because itā€™s been too long (but I do remember being impressed by their salad).

The Chang podcast with Skenes sucked so bad. The first rule of interviewing someone is that the interviewee should be doing most of the speaking.

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