I have been intrigued by Leon’s, the gastropub formerly known as gas station, for quite some time. The atmosphere, the dipping sauces, the bacon in a glass – they all kept dancing in my head like visions of sugar plums. So when my boyfriend asked me where I wanted to eat during the Decatur Book Festival, the answer was clear (especially since he was paying to “help a starving writer out” – so charming).Leon’s is one of those places where you can sit inside and feel like you’re outside. Not because of unpleasant reasons like the sound of whizzing cars or passerby gawking at your plate, but because it’s extremely bright and airy inside. Tables are moderately close together, but not in a “sorry I knocked your fork out of your hand” kind of way, and it was quite crowded when we were there, yet not too loud to leisurely plan our attack of the book fest. We were also seated within five minutes despite the hoards of festival-goers waiting to be seated. Overall the atmosphere was euphorically pleasant compared to other “trendy” places I’ve been to in Atlanta, as were the servers. Downright peachy even!
It was the unique menu, however, that had me at ‘hello’. My boyfriend got the trout gyro – love trout, love gyros but never had them together. The combo worked very well. I, however, could not pass up that day’s sandwich special – the lamb burger with chevre and fruit jam. It was juicy, sweet and salty all at the same time – perfect trifecta!
Now let’s talk about Leon’s famous pub frites with a Disneyland selection of dipping sauces. I figured if I was going to eat fries, I might as well go big with the bacon mayonnaise and goat cheese fondue. And not wanting to be outdone, the boyfriend also had to have the bacon mayonnaise, but cleverly supplemented it with the less-likely-to-clog-your-arteries spicy mango sauce. Our deary of a server informed us that double dipping in bacon mayo, then barbecue sauce resulted in the rich, meaty taste of a pulled pork sandwich (true story!), so she brought us an extra sauce on the house. In fact, she brought us three extra sauces for free because the sandwich and frites combo is only supposed to come with one sauce. I am glad Leon’s recognizes that people are primarily there for the childlike experience of dipping fries in as many sauces as possible just like we used to do at McDonald’s, and is therefore not at all stingy with the goods.
The one negative I’ll throw out there is that the frites were a little too charred for me. I don’t really like the taste of burnt stuff, but I realize some people do so it’s cool. It was nothing a little goat cheese fondue couldn’t fix! Incidentally, I also realized towards the end of my meal that the sauces made a great extra condiment for the sandwiches too. Duh! Obviously dipping a lamb burger with goat cheese into more goat cheese could only make it better. (I think my boyfriend got hip to this trick way before me because I noticed that most of the spicy mango had mysteriously disappeared.)
Overall, Leon’s was a superb place to fuel up before a few long hours of festing. Since the number of fests in Decatur seems to be infinitely multiplying, I’m sure I’ll be back at Leon’s one day. Next time I will save room for dessert, as our peachy waitress seemed pretty sad that we did not try the peach cobbler. And I can’t blame her. Since she declared that she only eats when she’s at Leon’s, I am sure she knows exactly what we missed out on. The drinks looked tempting too, but I had a lot of daylight ahead of me and I didn’t want to let it down.
