Leonardo

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

A Century and a Half of Hospitality on Sophienstraße

The building at Sophienstraße 6 has been pouring wine and feeding guests since 1880 — a record few addresses in Hannover can match. What began as a wine merchant's tavern in the predecessor building to the present-day Sophienhaus evolved through the 20th century into a fixture of the city's restaurant scene. Operators changed, decades passed, and in 2009 Donato Apicella shaped the establishment into a venue where tradition and contemporary cooking could coexist naturally. A further change of management came in early 2024, yet the underlying philosophy held firm: quality, reliability, and a clear focus on wine.

That continuity caught the attention of Gambero Rosso, which awarded Leonardo two forks — recognition that places it firmly among Italy's most respected evaluators of Italian dining abroad.

Refined Italian Cuisine, Reduced to What Matters

Leonardo describes its own cooking with unusual restraint: "not about effects, but about enjoyment." The refined Italian cuisine on offer is built around ingredient quality — carefully selected, precisely flavored, and presented without unnecessary flourish. The lunch and dinner menus rotate with the seasons, currently featuring white asparagus and chanterelles as central ingredients across multiple dishes.

The à la carte menu reads like a considered tour through Italian classics and their more ambitious cousins. Starters include hand-cut tartare of Irish beef fillet finished with sturgeon caviar, vitello tonnato, and a duo of goose foie gras. Pasta dishes range from the straightforward — sedanini with veal ragout — to tagliolini with fresh Alba truffle. Main courses cover veal cheeks with Parmesan vegetable risotto, a Hereford Angus beef fillet steak, wild-caught sole with butter and sage, and a daily fish selection. Seasonal recommendations add further range: beet-cured salmon with Ossetra caviar on a potato waffle, or a grilled entrecôte with chanterelles.

The evening set menu — three or four courses — moves through steamed cuttlefish in ginger-coconut cream with cuttlefish ink, tagliolini carbonara with fresh chanterelles, and a choice between tuna tataki and stuffed quail with a chanterelle and asparagus ragout, closing with strawberry mousse over rhubarb cream.

Wine as a Co-Equal at the Table

The Weinstube heritage is not decorative. Wines come primarily from European producers selected for passion and character — established names alongside more distinctive discoveries. The pairing instinct runs through the entire experience, and the service team is described as combining experience with genuine warmth: "attentive, reliable, and with a fine sense for the right moment."

The result is a room where the refined Italian cuisine and the wine list are in genuine conversation, and where guests — in the restaurant's own words — leave feeling they were "exactly in the right place."