Carriage doors and a white oak burl bar bring Old World feel to the former automotive shop turned award-winning restaurant | Photo by Kate Russell
Before Leo’s caught the attention of Bon Appetit, Esquire and the New York Times as one of the nation’s best new restaurants, this space was home to Boyd + Allister’s woodshop. Leo’s founder Jonathan Boyd created Leo’s signature hand-built wood interior and furniture inside the same space the restaurant now occupies. It never had to leave home.
The former-woodshop-turned-hot-spot brings Thai and Malay flavors to Santa Fe in a laid back 390 square feet neighborhood-hang, where patrons line the sidewalk like hollyhocks. Executive chef Stella Achenbach works closely with James Beard Award–winning chef Zakary Pelaccio serving up earthly delights: savory, tangy braised lamb shoulder with Thai green chile yogurt, a steamed dolrade with nam jim chile lime sauce, served whole, and a fried chicken so crisp Bon Appetit praised it as “as brittle as the Earth’s crust”(Enjoy with the fermented tofu mustard sauce for a scrumptious tang!).
One key ingredient that’s not on the menu: American hardwood.
Handturned wooden bowls bespoke to Leo’s signature dishes on custom walnut dining table. | Photo by Stella Achenbach
The Bowls
Serving up handmade rice noodles, Char Kway Teo, and a Catfish Som Tum in hand-turned wooden bowls, this subtle detail compliments the Southeast Asian flavors. The unostentatious humility of the wooden bowl feels right in the small space. Their absorbent quiet, impervious to clinking, recalls the teak environs that are origin to the Thai and Malay flavors – the bowls hold food and experience in a powerful way.
At Leo’s, the bowl can be built around the dish.
The whole steamed fish came first, the wooden tray to contain it, second. The tray was a bespoke creation sized for the dish, a desire born from many trips to Thailand and an appetite to recreate and serve the whole steamed fish in Jonathan’s high desert home.
Boyd and Allister custom tables with X style bases unite friends and strangers around the cuisine at Leo’s | Photo by Kate Russell
The Long Table
Communal dining is served up on American hardwood, custom from the Boyd + Allister shop.The custom walnut or oak communal tables on X style bases unite friends and strangers around the food, on the organic majesty of the same tree.
The four seasons enclosed patio with greenhouse roof hosts maple tables of the same design.
One gets the sense they grew in place, if Scandinavian and mid-century inspired tables could grow. In a way, they did. And sprung coordinating walnut stools like mushrooms around the trunk of the communal tables.
Made with traditional joinery methods, the impeccably clean silhouettes of both tables and low-back chairs and stools have an incarnate quality. The former shop table - patina’d to abstract art glory with the gestural marks of creating Leo’s - is displayed on the wall in a place of honor.
The Bar
Looking out the custom crafted carriage doors (an homage to space’s automotive history) or across to the patterned paneled bar, the fiction is in.
Below the bar are hand-built recessed panels built of white oak burl with a dark patina finish; it feels like a small New York nod. Boyd grew up in Bucks County, PA, an hour from the city and has shared a connection with it ever since. In recent years, Boyd has crafted interiors and furniture for NYC clients, including making designs for Soho Guild store by Roman & Williams, a furniture and lighting mecca and former turn-of-the-century marble emporium. The history is ingrained.
For Leo’s bar, Boyd was inspired by the West Village landmark Via Carota.”The feeling I wanted to get for the bar was an Old World approach,” says Boyd – a departure from the modern elements. It works.
The dining room and bar open to a four seasons patio with greenhouse roof to let the light in; all the better to admire the maple custom tables with | Photo by Kate Russell
How it feels like an 1800s bar that’s been there forever in a former auto shop. . . that’s just part of the Boyd + Allister Midas touch. Boyd would reference the detailed millwork and applying multilayer glaze finishes by hand to mimic the wear and tear of time gone by, but the craftsman must have some secrets.
Atop the slab of Calcutta marble, the expected and the unexpected collide in Leo’s cocktails: citrus, herbs, spices. A complex drink deserves a simple environment to serve it. The modern, effortless yet intentional bar at Leo’s is just that – understated just enough to vibe.