A Spanish restaurateur might chuckle at the idea of a place that closes at 10 p.m., when his customers are just settling in, but hey, we’re Midwesterners and this is how we roll. No complaints here — and Basque-Catalan Leña is full to the brim not just on weekends but on weeknights.
Leña bills itself as a neighborhood place, and toney Brush Park is apparently just the right location for a spot where local folks are comfortable dropping $150 a couple for no special occasion. Given that, I’m grateful when a server doesn’t ask if I want “sparkling” or “still” but just pours the tap water.
Leña has always been one of my favorite Spanish words. Partly because of the way it sounds, sort of like my grandmother’s name, but more because I think it’s neat that there’s a special word for firewood that doesn’t include “fire” or “wood.” At least one element of every dish at Leña is “fired” in some way, whether on the hearth, the grill or a plancha cooktop.
The flavors at Leña are outstanding and the service is top-notch, though it takes a long time for your first dish to arrive and noise levels are quite high. The menu includes ”pintxos,” the Basque version of tapas, which you’re warned will be just two to four bites per order; “entradas,” which include gazpacho, a salad, a Spanish tortilla (more like a quiche), and a couple of vegetable dishes; and “principales,” main dishes.
Although every dish at Leña was good, I’d say it was the starters whose flavors stood out most. One friend said “best tapenade I’ve ever had,” of an earthy spread of smoked olives, walnuts, and quince paste, with lemon prominent (lemon is a modal flavor throughout the menu).
Also outstanding was blonde gazpacho, Andalusia style. It’s not tomato-based but white, more or less liquid garlic in effect, garnished with roasted grapes and almonds for crunch. A charred beet tartare (that’s beet, not beef) is garlicky too, on crisp, thick, buttery toast. The tortilla has a soft potato filling enlivened by lemon and a kick of something spicy at the end.
Ham croquettes were fine — crisp spheres, tender within — but more ordinary. A bright-red piquillo pepper was stuffed with crab, a good contrast. Most unusual were smoked mushrooms — chanterelles foraged by the chef himself, we were told — with a creamy sauce and hazelnuts, served with more thick, buttery toast. Our party agreed this was a stand-out. The only small-to-medium dish I didn’t care for was grilled broccoli, served cold, crunchy and smoky.
Of the half dozen main dishes, I liked a long tentacle of charred octopus primarily for the excellent green mojo and smoky, lemony aioli that brightened it up. Salmon is sushi grade from New Zealand and cooked gently to bring out salmon’s best characteristics. It’s served with a tomato-brandy sauce you’ll want to sop up and a fennel sofrito. One night a salmon special was offered—the head, blackened—and the meat was delectable if hard to pick out.
I found chicken chorizo rather bland, as you might expect: let chorizo be chorizo! It’s served with a big heap of grilled peppers and onions. Another sausage, long, skinny txistorra (you know it’s Basque when you see x’s in unfamiliar places), is cured just for a day. Here it was served with “Spanish rice” that I thought could be a lot fluffier; it’s the Calasparra variety that’s supposed to be good for paella, and it did indeed have a lot of texture. The dish includes a dab of sofrito to liven it up.
For dessert we had a puff pastry that turned out to be not feathery but a hard cracker, with a voluptuous rhubarb-raspberry filling. Hard to cut but worth the work. Arroz con leche was a bit overcome with cinnamon; a walnut praline made it taste a lot like a cinnamon graham cracker. Honey Maid still makes them!
Leña is rightly proud of its alcohol program, where the wines, sherries, and vermouths are all Spanish. I read recently that Spain has “more land under vine” than any other country. I wasn’t crazy about a white called Barco del Corneta “Cucú” Verdejo Castilla y León; too acrid, but that’s just me; I don’t claim to be right (and I don’t like sweet wine in any way). My friend loved her dry white Estatu from the same year, 2022, and another friend said a red Pinaguas was full-bodied and just what she was looking for. Sangria was made with rosé and cocchi rosa.
The Spanish are big on gin and tonic, which they call “gin tonic,” the English words, and Leña plays around with three variations that are poured generously. In the fruit version, we couldn’t taste tonic, though Angostura bitters certainly added the astringent note, and it floated pink peppercorns and a couple of raspberries. Floral and herbal are the other gin tonic options.
Parking is a problem for non-residents of Brush Park, where you need a special resident permit to park after 6 p.m. Leña validates for the lots at 440 Alfred and 124 Alfred; get the QR code.
And be certain about your plans: Leña charges a fee of $25 per person if you cancel later than four hours before show time.
