Knowing ahead of time that what we are about to say is blasphemy, and will cause us to incur the wrath of many in Mandeville, including some friends, it must be said. We do not like Leonardo’s Trattoria. We do not need to like Leonardo’s, he will do just fine without our business. There are already so many fans that it is hard to get a table at any time.
Tonight, though, we called just to assess our chances, We were pleasantly surprised to hear that there were tables aplenty. With only four tables occupied, ridiculous service seemed, well, ridiculous. This place has such a fanatical fan base that it felt like we were outsiders, which explained our service.
We ordered a pizza as an appetizer after we were finally able to tell that to our server. Without contact with our server for awhile, we asked another one to ask ours to put in a side order of Italian sausage. She did come over to ask if we wanted the sausage with the pizza or pasta.
Within minutes of our answer that it didn’t matter, the sausage arrived. It was then that we started to understand the appeal here. For $4, an enormous pile of four links of grilled Italian sausage in a marinara was placed before us. It didn’t look very good, but it was. The sauce was quite good, and the sausage itself had a nice texture.
Our Calabrese salami pizza came right after this. It was rather large for just $11. Nearly all the pizzas are under $12 here. Another clue to the popularity. Within minutes of the pizza arrival, before either of us had finished even a slice, the mussels I ordered and the aglio olio MA ordered arrived. When the waitress saw our shocked faces she sheepishly said as she shrugged,”I know you wanted the pizza first, but the pizzas and pastas come from separate parts of the kitchen and sometimes this happens.”
Huh?
Mary Ann would often cringe at the dreaded scenario, because. I used to say, “Which of these should I let get cold?” but I’ve mellowed in my old age. The waitress left quickly, calling back to us, “It’s too hot to eat anyway right now.” Piles of food sat there, as we tried to figure out which to eat first. No one ate the pizza, and the entire thing went home.
My mussels were fine, and there were certainly a lot of them. Served on a large bed of rigatoni which was a little too al dente, I didn’t need to eat pasta anyway. The sauce was good, though, and MA did her soup thing, ladling it in for vitamins, or some such nonsense.
The pasta with oil and garlic she ordered hit the spot she said, but how hard can that be? That was the dish she really wanted, and here they had it.
None of this was bad. The servers worked hard. But it was really ordinary to us. That’s a good thing, we think. No one will have to save us a place in line.
Leonardo’s Trattoria & Pizzeria
2625 Florida Mandeville La
985-778-2550
11-10 Closed Sunday
facebook.com/leonardostrattoria
