SITTING in Leshko’s, my dining pal can’t help harking back. “I don’t believe it,” he says. “This used to be the greasiest spoon you can imagine!”
That was then. These days the former Eastern European coffee shop (under new ownership) has a clever new chef and a jazzed-up ’60s look from the designers behind Moomba and Veruka — not to mention spotless utensils.
In keeping with the mod theme, a cool, dark bar is backlit in red. Since reservations aren’t in the equation, plan on cooling your heels there with a specialty retro cocktail if you arrive after 8. During our visits, that’s the time the dining area’s vintage Knoll chairs started quickly filling up with a gabby crowd of black-clad downtown partiers and Gap types.
And how’s this for “groovy”? The plastic tabletops resemble corrugated cardboard. Other back-to-the-future flourishes include jagged hearthstone columns and a sprawling chandelier that’s like a flattened version of those Sputnik lamps from the New Frontier era.
Chef Bruce Barnes’ menu also recalls simpler times, but his comfort classics are 2000-worthy. Leshko’s meat loaf ($11.95), for instance, is incredibly light and juicy. A hefty portion comes with mushroom gravy and sturdy mashed potatoes. Our helpful waitress warned that roasted chicken ($12.95) would take 25 minutes, and it’s well worth the short wait for this golden-skinned, sage-tinged half bird resting in a bed of tender spaetzle and mushrooms. The dumpling nuggets, moistened by the bird’s lemony juices, outclassed a blander side of the same spaetzle ($3) ordered another time.
A fine, fat tuna steak ($13.95), glistening garnet-hued inside and full of flavor, comes with a colorful salad of small beet cubes and capers, a far more innovative pairing than the omnipresent salmon filet over sauteed spinach ($13.95) — which had a strong fish scent. Meanwhile, a braised lamb shank ($14.95) is everything a carnivore could ask for: buttery meat falling from a Flintstones-sized bone mated with red cabbage and apples.
Surprisingly, the one disappointment is an appetizer of what’s called “Leshko’s famous mushroom and leek pirogues” ($5.95). Besides having a pasty potato filling, the sauteed pirogi would be more delicate boiled. Go for the spicy-hot, cornmeal-crunchy calamari ($6.95) instead, impossible to stop dunking in lemony roasted tomato sauce.
If you opt for dessert ($5), creme brulee is lush, with a hint of coffee. On the other hand, a trim square of apple blueberry cobbler is so light it just might leave you wondering, “Where have all the flours gone?”
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LESHKO’S
111 AVENUE A (AT SEVENTH STREET) (212) 777-2111