New Yorker critic Hannah Goldfield really dug Leonti’s bread. The new Upper West Side restaurant by chef Adam Leonti serves a durum-wheat focaccia with a “burnished bronze” crust and an interior that’s “bubbled” and “stretchy.” The bread, made by the chef himself, is “magnificent,” she writes.

But she enjoys the rest of her meal as well, describing dishes as “boldly creative” and “excitingly esoteric.” The lasagna, for instance, turns out to be a single, upside down artichoke served with green noodles and béchamel sauce. The chicken in pastella is “supremely crunchy,” and even the desserts, like a “wonderfully subtle” olive-oil-peperoncino gelato, shouldn’t be skipped, she says.