The NYC Restaurants That Inspire the Team at Leland Eating and Drinking House

Randi Lee: This was the first spot that we thought of. Delfin is Filipino, and I’m Chinese, so we have a lot of admiration for Asian-driven restaurants. I think we both gravitate toward that style of cooking, which has a lot to do with what Leland is.

Win Son is great. When we opened up our restaurant, we wanted to make sure that everything was baked and made in-house, and that was kind of the ethos of their bakery and restaurant, too. We usually go there for lunch, which is always bustling and so good. Even the pastrami they do in their own way is creative and fun. They do stuff that is totally different than everybody else.

Delfin Jaranilla: The thing I really appreciate about Win Son is that it’s super whimsical. It’s fun, with a lot of Asian influence in their cooking, which marries a lot of what New Yorkers really crave. I think that’s what makes it a really specific New York success story, where there are a lot of really cool Asian ingredients and cooking methods, but it’s also super approachable for the casual diner that’s never had any of their food. That’s something we like to emulate at Leland as well, with our cooking.

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I think the way that they cook and the vibe that they have in their retail location, which is really cool, is something that we’ve always admired.

Jaranilla: I was just there a few weeks ago. It’s a really cool sort of combination fish market slash casual restaurant. You walk in and they’ve got fresh seafood on ice, they’ve got fresh oysters, clams, all this local stuff. There’s a really great fish sandwich that I had there; I’m a big sucker for a filet o’ fish.

Plus, they are one of, I think, one of the very few people that have a direct relationship with Bangs Island Mussels. That is a centerpiece on our menu: our charred lemon skillet mussels. It’s literally the best mussel that I’ve ever had.

Lee: There’s also a big sustainable part to this. They’re not bringing in products that they can’t get. Sustainability is a big part of what Leland is. They’re also not throwing down a burger or things that they didn’t catch locally [at their restaurant].

Lee: We talk about Radio Bakery a lot in our meetings with our team. I’ve been lucky to get there early enough to bring some of their treats back to our bakers. Unfortunately, they run out a lot.

It’s something that’s inspiring for us to always work toward with our bakery. They use the local grains that we use, so that’s also really inspiring for us to have similar mindsets, [and see that] they’re doing it really well.

There are so many new bakeries out there, I think that there’s a new trend for every restaurant to have one. For us, it was kind of a necessity since we wanted to make sure that we had control over the type of bread we had, and we wanted to have the story of something that was made in house. There’s not a day that we don’t think about bread, and Radio Bakery is one of the top ones out there.

Every time we go, we grab their seeded sourdough. Their focaccia is always really good. I usually walk out of there with, like $150 worth of bread, and it pretty much feeds our whole staff for the day.

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There were a lot of significant restaurants in Chinatown, and you’d go there for the food, but also for an experience. You saw them come and go, and it was kind of sad. The community started to get smaller and smaller, and you never saw new Chinese restaurants open up.

[The team behind Potluck Club] is pretty cool. They’re young kids who grew up in Chinatown and took the experience of leaving and cooking at other places and then bringing it back, reflecting on what their relationship is with food. So, there’s a lot of Mediterranean-inspired stuff, Southern cooking with fried chicken and biscuits, and they do crudos and things like that.

They’re Cantonese inspired so they have a lot of stuff, like drunken chicken, braised short ribs, spicy eggplant, and tofu. I think that it takes a lot of courage to come together and cook food that’s about their heritage and where they are in their lives.

Lee: The reason we chose these restaurants is that every one of them is at the heart of what Leland is. We butcher everything in house, and so do they.

We do butcher classes now once or twice a month for our own clientele, and we get the same questions over and over again, and it’s really great. But I think the biggest reason that we do this is learning how it can be sustainable from nose to tail. We butcher fish, poultry, meats, and we utilize 95% of every animal that we bring in.

These guys are artisanal butchers. I just give them a big high five that they keep doing what they’re doing. I think their food is very comfortable and approachable. Being a good butcher is an art and I think that we’re losing that, so it’s great to see.

Jaranilla: It’s all connected. The state of the world, and global warming, and the climate crisis — people care now more than ever about where their food is coming from. I think that’s why it’s getting such a big revival.