janleone's

Rocky Mountain News

Published March 1, 2001 at midnight

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The advice applies equally to writers, chefs and models who try to act.

Stick with what you know.

And after nearly 30 years in the business, Jan Leone knows her way around a kitchen. From Cafe Giovanni through Siena -- with a divorce from Denver's other restaurant Leone, Jack, and a few cameos at local eateries in between -- she has identified the style that works for her.

Now she's workin' it at her latest venture, janleone.

She couldn't have picked a more suitable setting for her warm, lush comfort food. The Colmar mansion, built in 1889, feels like a rich old aunt's house: handcarved woodwork, dried roses and stained glass. The main dining rooms house faux fireplaces nicer than most real ones, and the piano bar is as inviting as grandma's hug. There's got to be a doily in there somewhere.

It's hard to believe this once housed Surf City, the gay strip club that featured G-string-clad men cavorting about (why don't their ghosts haunt the place like other past residents do?). No whining about the location, though: Tante Louise and the Normandy have survived forever on Colfax Avenue, thank you very much.

Not that janleone is quite up to their standards -- yet. Leone can pull it off, but she's still bogged down in the details: wrinkled tablecloths, dust on the woodwork, lights not turned on, stacked plates with no napkin between to keep the top plate from turning into a roulette wheel while you eat.

Most importantly, though, the menu is a little too hearty and wintery for 95-degree temperatures.

Of all the minutiae, the menu eats at Leone the most. "I have locked myself in the office, I can't tell you how many times, to change the menu,'' she says. "Then something else needs my more immediate attention, and I want to scream.''

Meanwhile, diners must quietly make do with what is offered -- not exactly a hardship. Appetizers such as the sumptuous wild mushroom and duck liver pate ($6.95) encased in puff pastry and the garlic-drenched, roquefort-enriched escargot ($7.50) begged for total consumption. And the entree of lasagne ($16.95), with homemade noodles draped around lobster, crab and crayfish meat with cheese and spinach, all settled into a shellfish sauce so intense it made us weepy.

Nothing, however, was put together as well as the paella ($19.95), a special so special it should be put on the regular roster immediately. Name five restaurants in town doing this Spanish creation, and then name one that's doing it well: janleone.

Of course, puritans believe only paella made with Valencia's calcium-heavy water is the real deal, and then there's the shellfish issue (paella originally contained rabbit and chicken), the rice issue (bomba especial is the preferred type) and the gender issue (some believe only men can make paella). Leone scoffs at all of that, using Denver water, shellfish with chicken (put some white meat in there, though) and arborio rice, the latter of which gave the paella a creamy, luxurious texture. Crucial, however, was plenty of saffron.

The lunch entrees weren't quite as complex as the paella, but there was no disputing that the sandwiches added up to much more than the sum of their parts. A deep-fried calamari po' boy ($6.95) with a tartar-sauce-like aioli came on a fresh-baked roll (made by Leone's daughter, Mara, who owns the bakery next door and is the restaurant's pastry chef) that had become as one with the fillings.

The same applied to the adroitly assembled roasted eggplant sandwich ($6.95), the deep flavors of which were echoed in the roasted eggplant soup ($6.95) -- again, too heavy for summer dining, but oh-so-wonderful -- that came with a sound Caesar salad. Even the French fries had been expertly salted.

Lucky Mara has inherited her mother's keen sense of flavor-merging, and her desserts (all $4.95) were out of this world: chocolate ''oblivion,'' a decadent chocolate chip bread pudding, a mousse-light flourless chocolate cake, and the best tiramisu in town.

But there's no question that janleone's namesake is responsible for the main courses. And to know her food is to love it.

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