Passing Lazlo’s

One of the restaurant closings I overlooked in my 2006 wrap-up was Lazlo’s Cuisine, the continental restaurant specializing in Eastern European cuisine that took shape in 2003 in the former Ruggeri’s Ristorante space in Addison. Lazlo’s was the work of Lazlo Toth, an 18-year veteran of Ruggeri’s who had an lengthy career as a chef, maitre d’ and sommelier in metro areas such as Budapest, for example.

At Lazlo’s he served up paprikash, goulash, stuffed cabbage, English roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and Brassoi pork in a paprika-infused V-8 vegetable juice sauce with crisp potato cubes, a dish Toth described as a Romanian version of chicken fingers, which suggests a few translation orphans. “Due to circumstances beyond our control and health concerns…Lazlo’s is closed,” reads a sign taped to the door. The number at the bottom is disconnected. So is Dallas’ grip on Romanian chicken fingers. –Mark Stuertz