If you enjoy eating out as much as I do, you probably already have a favorite restaurant or two among New York City’s many off-the-beaten-path eateries. Special places whose food and atmosphere you’d like to share with special friends. Ever since I began covering the restaurant scene for ROUTES, my search for such places has intensified, and, this month I would like to share with you my latest discovery Leoni Au Coin D’Haiti Restaurant.
Leoni Au Coin D’Haiti Restaurant is, as the name implies, a restaurant featuring Haitian cuisine. It’s located at 131 East 39th Street, in an elegant townhouse, between Lexington and 3rd Avenues. But there is much more to Leoni Au Coin D’Haiti Restaurant than the fact that it offers the best Haitian food in the city. The place, itself, is an experience because it has all the warmth and charm of a cozy private home.
The first room one enters is appropriately called The Living Room. It is a small, very inviting room in which one is seated in comfortable, shawl-covered sofas. There diners enjoy a complimentary drink amid lush green plants and distinctive Haitian and African art-work. Persian rugs cover the floor. There are small crystal bowls temptingly filled with candies and nuts. Soft music fills the air. The atmosphere is enhanced by the warm glow of candlelight.
A spiral staircase with red carpeting leads to two dining rooms. Each seats 20 to 25 guests at small square tables surrounded by pink or blue chairs (depending on the room) and set with fine china on crisp white linen. Colorful linen napkins sprout from sparkling gold-rimmed goblets. Each table is graced by a crystal vase filled with long-stemmed flowers. Though a large chandelier hangs in each room, the only lighting comes from a fireplace and a candle on each table.
Leoni Au Coin D’Haiti Restaurant — Proprietress Leonie McGregor
The person responsible for giving Leoni Au Coin D’Haiti Restaurant such a deeply personal touch is its proprietress and on-premises host Leonie McGregor. She is a gracious, invigorating and determined black lady who sees the restaurant as the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.
“I became interested in good food when I was about fifteen,” said Leonie. She gained her initial culinary experience at Hotel Choucoune, in Haiti, “and I started thinking about opening a restaurant when I was twenty. I didn’t know how or where, but I knew I would do it.”
The road to 131 East 39th Street has been a long and hard one for Leonie McGregor. Married (and divorce) at an early age, she’s traveled that road while raising two children and caring for a younger brother.
For a while, she worked as a model for the Ophelia de Vore agency, “That was before it was fashionable for blacks to be models, honey.’’ she points out, ‘‘But it was a lot of fun.’’ She also spent thirteen years as a receptionist in the sales and advertising department of Texaco. More recently, three years running a combination gift shop/art gallery.
Leoni Au Coin D’Haiti Restaurant offers customers fine merchandise along with their food and drinks
Leonie’s last work experience is being put to good use at Leoni Au Coin D’Haiti Restaurant. For Leonie (Following the example of such restaurants as Once Upon a Stove and Casa Storica) offers her customers fine merchandise along with the food and drinks menus.
‘‘I always wanted to do it this way,’’ she explains. “Since I was already in contact with manufacturers in England, Japan, Jamaica and Haiti, I thought a gift gallery would be ideal. Especially for people who don’t have much time for shopping.
Samples of everything here are used as decoration. It really doesn’t look like a store. While customers are having dinner they can simply say to the waiter that they would like such and such from this or that wall. When they’re ready to leave, the chosen item will have been packed and the cost included in the bill. Only the very large items, solid mahogany chairs from Jamaica and Haiti, have to be ordered six to eight weeks in advance.
Besides decorative or useful items such as platters, goblets, sculptures and trays, Leoni Au Coin D’Haiti Restaurant carries fine candies, which, as Leoni explains, can be a most practical purchase. ‘‘If a gentleman should come to dinner with a lady other than his wife. And he feels guilty about it. He might just ease that guilty conscience by purchasing a fine box of Paringer candy to take home to the wife. That sort of thing does happen, you know. It’s all part of making things convenient for the customer. I really want people who come here to feel at home.”
People tell me they really feel at home
“People tell me they really feel at home here, not as if they were dining in a restaurant. That’s how I want it to be. When I tell them to make themselves at home, I really mean it. I don’t bother them. If they want to stay for several hours because they feel relaxed, that’s fine with me. Some diners come in here and say ‘Where is it?.’ They want to know where the restaurant is. And when I tell them that this is it, they often say ‘Oh my god, I don’t believe it.’ Then when they go upstairs they are really impressed with what I’ve done. And that goes for my neighbors as well — many of them have thanked me for adding elegance to the neighborhood.”
The townhouse stood empty for three years and was badly in need of repair
When Leonie McGregor found the townhouse, through an ad in the paper. It stood empty for three years and was badly in need of repair. “We worked like dogs, my daughter and I,” she says. ‘‘We pulled up floors with our bare hands. We painted. Lifted this and carried out that.
“Honey, this was some place. We slaved day in and day out to put it together. I saw the work and knew it had to be done, but the only way I could really face it was by imagining the way it was going to look when it was finished. I knew how I wanted it, and that’s what kept me going.
“American Express gave a party here, but the place wasn’t ready when they made the arrangement for it. So I worked three days and three nights without sleep, until I just blacked out. I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. They kept me there all day. But I came back to the Restaurant, relaxed for a couple of hours, and started all over again.
“So far they have had to pick me up three times, just from exhaustion. For a while, it seemed as if I wasn’t doing any work, I was spending so much time in the hospital. I was told to sit down and take it easy. But every time I came back here I asked myself ‘who’s going to do the work if I don’t?.’ So, I continued. I still have a lot of work to do, and when that is over, I’m going to have to work even harder just to keep the place going.”
Women in business have problems
While one cannot but admire Leonie for her tremendous physical efforts, she also had to put her stamina to the test in other ways. For example, when she applied for a loan from the Small Business Administration. ‘‘Women in business have problems,’’ she explains from bitter experience. ‘‘Most people who approve loans or help new businesses are men, and — I hate to say this, but it’s the truth — men often assume that women don’t have the head to manage a business. One time they said that I didn’t have enough experience to open a restaurant.
“I said to myself ‘What is this?’ They don’t know my capabilities. Just because I was a receptionist and never owned a restaurant before doesn’t mean I don’t deserve a chance. All my life, it had been my dream to prove that I could do it. When I told these men that, they looked at me as if I was crazy They said ‘why don’t you get married, or something?’
So I told them that I didn’t want to get married. That I had been married, and, now I just wanted to open my own business. I often wonder, to myself, where they would be if someone hadn’t given them a chance. Many of my friends at big corporations have given me letters of support. I have submitted them to the Small Business Administration, but they still have not approved my loan. I’m sure it’s because I’m a woman, I won’t say because I’m a black woman, because I would hate to think that might have anything to do with it.’’
Leonie attributes that determination to the encouragement of her children
Leonie McGregor could still use some financial help, but with or without it she is determined to see her dream through. She attributes that determination to the encouragement she’s received from her younger brother and two children. ‘‘If say my three kids,’’ she explains, ‘‘because when my mother died she left me my brother, Jude, and he is a sweetheart. After my son got married, at 19, my daughter and Jude were the closest people to me. They really stood by me; sometimes, when things looked hopeless and I felt alone, those two tried to make me laugh. They’d say ‘come on mommy, come on sister, we will make it, don’t worry,’ and I’d say to myself ‘yes,’ because those two have been the light in my life.
My daughter knows that everything I have done has been for them. I raised my children by myself, and, even when I was broke the children looked impeccable. Now I wasn’t thinking of the children when I first dreamt of having a restaurant. But when I was working for Texaco as a receptionist, I thought about the fact that I was forty years old and I had nothing to leave my children. So this gave me the urge to do something constructive before I got too old, or died.”
Since opening in July, Leoni Au Coin D’Haiti has attracted an impressive roster of regular clients. The guest book is filled with the names of U.N. diplomats and successful business people. Many of the guests first became acquainted with Leoni’s cooking expertise, prior to the opening of the restaurant, at private parties catered by her.
Once you have tasted Leoni’s cooking, the attraction becomes clear. Though African and Caribbean dishes are available on Saturdays, the accent, of course, is on Haitian cuisine, which is similar to French cuisine, but has a distinction of its own. ‘‘What really makes Haitian food are the spices,” Leonie says, “It is well seasoned, but not necessarily hot. We make it according to our customers’ taste — mild, medium or very hot. Basically we eat the same things, pork, chicken, beef, seafood, or whatever. But we prepare them in different ways. That’s what distinguishes Haitian cuisine from Italian, French, and so on.”
The many fine dishes served at Leoni Au Coin D’Haiti Restaurant
Among the many fine dishes served at Leoni Au Coin D’Haiti Restaurant (English translation: Leonie on the corner of Haiti) are two excellent “soups: Creme de Giromon (cream of pumpkin), the national soup of Haiti, and Soupe aux Pois Noir, au Pois Conre (black bean or black-eyed pea soup), an absolute knockout. Specialties of the house— served with vegetables of the season (usually fresh) and rice, or rice and beans and a salad — include Poulet Port-au-Prince (chicken in a spiced Haitian sauce), Lambi et Aubergines (stewed conch and eggplant), Roti de Porc de la Gonave (roast pork with Creole sauce), shrimp and crab dishes, and a variety of delicious gumbos.
All of the above is, of course, preceded by a choice of four mouth-watering hors d’oeuvres (which almost are a meal in themselves) and followed by desserts that are as unique as the rest of the menu: Pudding de Bain au Rhum (bread pudding in a rum sauce) or Corbeille de Fruits et Fromages, a wide variety of fresh fruit and cheeses. American coffee is also available, but I recommend that you try Cafe filtre d’Haiti, a rich Haitian coffee with a pinch of cinnamon added to give it a very special taste.
Leoni Au Coin D’Haiti Restaurant also has a special luncheon menu, which includes Banana Pancakes (served with fresh fruit) and a terrific Caviar Omelet. Prices are moderate: meals are prix fix, starting at $10 for lunch and $15 for dinner, or a la carte. Lunch is served Monday through Friday from 11 am to 3 pm, dinner Sunday through Saturday from 6 pm to midnight. Reservations are preferred for lunch, but required for dinner — (212) 532-8812. At the moment, Leoni Au Coin D’Haiti Restaurant can accommodate small private parties, but the expectation is to expand to other floors eventually. Your patronage could help to speed up that process.