I would like a greater variety of pizza flavors.
Also, a great Greek salad. And I’m not talking horiatiki.
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I miss truffle, uni, and cured salmon with crème fraiche pizzas. I miss tuna tartare, I miss caviar with waffle. 
although menu is great now for everyone.
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I’ve been traveling for a minute and wanted to avoid the whole leopardo shit for a bit, but I made the mistake of clicking on a digest thread in my email.
First, I agree Infatuation is mostly clickbait. Some of their lists make me angry. They generally don’t dive deep beyond the surface—but that is the nature of the game if you want to stay solvent doing strictly food criticism. I say this with respect as someone who knows one of the guys there.
Second, the concept of “normal” people vs “us” is the one thing that consistently bothers me about this board, but I think I’m coming at it from a different angle. I know everyone on here is extremely well versed in food + drink… but we also have money to dine out regularly at $$$ spots in LA and often have (and tout) access to reservations nobody else can consistently get. I feel like that is far much more the difference than finding places “pushing boundaries.” You can find depth and push depth in hole in the walls. That sort of stuff is poorly, or never, discussed here.
Last, and apart from all my other bullshit above—I don’t understand at ALL what is challenging about Leopardo. On a technical level? (The tomato peeling thing is still something I joke about with people.) Culinary/crossover/whatever the fuck they are trying to do? (It feels like a rehash of every dimly lit New Italian place from the past 10 years or so.)
There’s never been a single dish there that’s made me rethink the idea of what flavor, technique, concept, or service could be—now or after Leopardo. Yet it reads to me like they’re being heralded as the second coming of Jesus here.
Anyway. Speaking of Jesus, Merry Christmas? Headed to a fourth bowl of beef noodles today for a Taipei shootout.
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Can it be both? Those that can afford it. And those who really appreciate good food, the 5% who aren’t taking selfies of themselves in the restaurants bathroom mirror. Personally myself, I’m a disabled ex-cook on disability. But throw coins in my must visit restaurant piggy bank until I can afford to go.
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I wish I could even understand what the controversy is. Is there something deeper going on here than: Some people like the food more than others?
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A digest email from FTC? If there’s a feature like that I’m turning it off.
Nonsense.
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Maybe Leopardo isn’t trying to be challenging
Does their pizza need to be challenging to be delicious?
Are the buffalo milk curds contenders on American Gladiators?
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I also wonder if the digest email omitted the part where one of the currently most praised pizzaiolos in the country wrote a dissertation level analysis on how the pizza here is boundary pushing on flavor, technique, and concept?
Perhaps even within this board there are varying degrees of “us”
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Finally got over here with some friends for an early dinner on NYE while visiting family.
Oysters
Very good. $6/piece good? Maybe. (Also pictured: one of the cocktails - the honeysuckle sour? Very good.)
Deer Tartare
I liked it a lot; the rest of the table thought the first bite was excellent but thought it a bit samey after that.
Sourdough Machete w/Bagna Càuda & Anchovy
Killer bread. Really really killer. Cheese crust on top is 
Cali-prese 2010
We got 3 of these. (2 on the first go around, and then another.) I think the third was extra, but everything that was said about this dish was true.
Hanger Steak
The steak was merely good. Hot sauce was great, and I liked the radicchio a lot, though I don’t really know how much sense it made as a whole. I’d probably give this a pass; stomach space is too competitive.
Handkerchief Pasta
Wow 
Best pasta of the year?
Little crispy bits on the edges went crazy. So did the insides. I’m so sad there’s nothing like this in Berkeley.
Giardiniera
Good but I think I was the only one at the table who was really into pickled vegetables.
Re-marinara
I think this might possibly beat out Sei for my favorite pizza of all time. As with the cali-prese, all the praise heaped upon the pizza was on-point.
At this point, we were done with our initial order… but still felt like we had some space left.
Bianca
Good, but not as good as the re-marinara. Outer crust was just as good, but I might just not be a white pizza guy. I’d skip this next time.
Striped Bass
I had some hope that this would be similar to Angler’s rendition, despite the early reporting, but unfortunately not. The fish was cooked well but the chili crunch wasn’t at all spicy - it was good but the dish fairly muted. The side salad was very nice. Pass.
Barbeque Half Chicken
As a friend of mine says… wowzers! Perfectly-cooked chicken with an amazing (and surprisingly spicy) rub. I didn’t like the bbq sauce but it didn’t exactly need anything, so that was fine. Highly recommended.
Soft Serve
Salted caramel and cocao nibs on the left, rum honeycomb and sourdough butter biscoff cookies on the right. I think the actual soft-serve base on right one was also custard rather than just milk soft-serve? It was definitely thicker and sweeter.
Anyways, huge fan, especially of the custard & rum honeycomb sauce. I also liked the milk soft-serve but the salted caramel was a bit much; I liked Angler’s take on that combination a bit more.
What else to say about the meal? The pacing at the start was indeed quite rushed; we got more than half of our first batch of dishes in the space of like 10-15 minutes. The service was otherwise pretty good, and the pacing improved dramatically after that (especially given the second order we placed after we were done with the first set of dishes). The part where you’re handling your own cutlery feels almost like a gimmick; the rest of the experience does not really scream “casual dining”. The price tag was $150/head all-in, which if anything felt cheap for what was maybe my best meal of the year (but certainly top 3). This is with a couple drinks and having slightly over-ordered.
Very glad I made it out while the kitchen’s still going strong. Hope it’s still around next time I make it down south.
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cause they are booked or closed?
they’ve never been booked so i’m suspecting something is up
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Remodel?
They’re pretty active on IG, so one would think something like that would be noted ahead of time…
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could be staffing with all the fires? they were terribly understaffed last time I was there
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went last tuesday, buffalo milk curds with orange marmalade my favorite set yet. pinpoint sweet
solo floating ice chip vesper
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i think their online presence is just poorly managed — for example, they posted on IG that they were closed for tonight . . . at 7:28pm. That’s probably the kind of thing that should be posted before 7:28pm.
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Casually posted…
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so much about this restaurant has just been really odd, i don’t really get it
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