There's a particular kind of restaurant that feels less like a destination and more like a neighborhood secret you've somehow been invited into. Leland Eating and Drinking House, wedged into the corner of Dean and Underhill in Prospect Heights, is exactly that—a low-key spot with split-level seating, natural light, and the kind of comfortable ease that Time Out nailed when they called it "an easy place to be." Opened in 2020 by industry veteran Randi Lee (a veteran of Del Posto and Ruschmeyer's), Leland doesn't announce itself. It doesn't need to.
Chef Delfin Jaranilla, who previously worked the line at Fedora and Quality Eats, has built a brunch menu that feels genuinely rare in its balance. There are anchors for the undone-by-Saturday-night crowd: a sausage, egg and cheese that probably shouldn't work as well as it does, a honey toast brulée with its amber crack of caramelized sugar, and the pork shank hash that The Infatuation correctly identified as reason enough to drag yourself out of bed. These are the plates you order when your ambition is measured in the effort required to open your eyes.
But venture further into the menu and Leland rewards curiosity without punishing practicality. Poached eggs arrive on housemade laffa bread with jalapeño labne—a combination that sounds fussy but reads as deeply smart, bright, and generously portioned. A porchetta sandwich hits that portal where cured and roasted pork, properly deployed, stops being a dish and becomes a life choice. The sourdough cinnamon bun is the non-negotiable dessert, the kind of thing that tastes like someone actually cares about how dough ferments and sugar caramelizes. Every plate I've watched leave the kitchen lands. That's not luck. That's butchery know-how, relationships with local farms for seasonal ingredients, and the kind of discipline that comes from knowing what you're doing.
What makes Leland matter right now is precisely what makes it so easy to overlook: it's a corner tavern doing foundational cooking without irony or apology, a place where a choose-your-own-adventure menu somehow doesn't result in the chaos those words usually promise. There's no fuss here, no explanation required. The dining room is comfortable. The coffee is real. The bread is made in-house. Come hungry on a Sunday when you've just realized your day needs salvaging, and you'll understand why Prospect Heights keeps this place to itself.
Go early, settle in, and order more than you think you need. The menu rewards exploring, and unlike most brunch situations, the kitchen has the chops to back that up.