February 10, 2020 Issue

Two of my favorite dishes – lasagna and tiramisu – figure in Hannah Goldfield’s excellent “Tables For Two: Leo,” in this week’s issue. Of lasagna, she writes,

At Leo, you can order a gorgeous slab of it: pillowy layers of thin noodles, stretchy provola cheese, and bright, tart marinara, with a bit of bite from crackly edges and the finely chopped blanched kale folded into the sauce. 

Mm, I’ll have a slice of that, please. As for tiramisu, Goldfield writes two descriptions, one of a tiramisu that she associates with “the kind of red-sauce joint whose charmingly chintzy atmosphere is more alluring than its food”:

It seemed too often to be a stodgy, compacted mass of ladyfingers and mascarpone cream, chalky with cocoa powder and flavorless but for blunt hits of Marsala wine and coffee, as if it were trying to sober itself up.

And the other is a description of Leo’s tiramisu:

Leo’s version comes in a fluted glass tumbler that showcases its appealingly messy striations, as spoonable as pudding. Vanilla angel-food sheet cake is soaked in espresso and a soft spike of rum and amaro. The finished trifle is showered in delicate curls of Askinosie chocolate, and each creamy bite bears an unmistakable vein of salt. 

Goldfield is a master of carnal writing. I devour it.