Leah’s Restaurant

Leah Adler has a couple of secrets. She leaves the lime out of the guacamole. She adds burnt onions to everything from egg salad to creamed spinach crepes. And she wrote her son Steven “gastro-intestinal notes” when he wanted to play hooky from school.

“I go my own way,” she says mischievously. “I never did conform. When the kids were young, I used to make dinner at 6 a.m. A neighbor would scream, ‘Who’s burning onions?’ I’d shout back, ‘Me.’ I have no regrets. Most of the time I walk around grinning.”

Adler certainly has a lot to grin about — mother of four, happy, creative children, including Steven Spielberg, one of the most respected filmmakers of all time, and Anne Spielberg, co-writer of the blockbuster “Big.”

Proud of her children’s accomplishments, Adler has decorated the walls of her Los Angeles restaurant, Milky Way, with movie posters, memorabilia and photos, including a joyous Steven hugging his mother after he won the Academy Award for the distinguished “Schindler’s List”; a playful Leah, clowning around in comic’s nose and glasses, a radiant Leah and late husband, Bernie Adler, wearing a tallis and yarmulke.