Let Me Tell You—I found out how the sausage gets made at Leland Eating and Drinking House

“Let Me Tell You” is a series of columns from our expert editors about NYC living, including the best things to do, where to eat and drink, and what to see at the theater. They are published every week.

It’s a Wednesday night and I’m standing with a handful of New Yorkers in the basement of a restaurant in Prospect Park. Every so often cooks and servers weave through us, grabbing supplies to handle the service that buzzes up above. Water rushes through the pipes while the fridges keep a steady hum. Before me, the reason for our arrival—a headless, half of a pig splayed out on a table, its hooves dangling off the edge.  

This sight is a common one for the staff at Leland Eating and Drinking House. The Prospect Park eatery is well known in the area for its in-house everything—pickling, bread-baking and butchery. What’s new is inviting everyone else to be a part of it. Earlier this year, the restaurant began hosting butchery classes to better connect patrons to the food that they eat while also driving home their sustainability practices. The monthly class rotates through animals, be it duck, tuna, and in my case, pig. The hour-long butchery session culminates with a sit-down dinner so you can not only see how the sausage gets made but eat it, too. 

Standing behind the hog is the very capable sous chef and in-house butcher, Gary Little. A very smiley man, it’s clear Little is passionate about his craft. His favorite pig is the Red Wattle. When asked what he has been working on, he points to the bourbon-washed ham and the coppa cured with rosemary and black pepper that’s aging in the basement; slices of which were passed around during the demo. Just by looking, Little could break down how much the hog would yield, ballparking 14 pork chops, 40 pieces of bacon, 60 portions of sausage, two hams and then some. It’s Little’s wealth of knowledge that helps to make the class, his affable personality instilling a bit of levity as he snips through tendons and quite literally saws through bones.

While the demonstration can be squeamish-inducing (or enraging if you don’t eat meat), the root of it all is the simple idea of learning where your food comes from. Thanks to their partnership with Heritage Farms, Little knows what the pig ate and its quality of life, its bright red coloring is a clear indicator, he said, of a rich diet and exercise. Driving it all home is the sustainability of whole animal butchery. During the breakdown of the animal, Little would discard inedible parts of the pig—the ovaries and hormonal glands—in a bucket at his feet. Only 5% of the pig, he proudly announced, would go to waste, the rest finding its way in the restaurant, be it cured for charcuterie, stock, and, naturally, in plates and specials. 

Speaking of, each dinner culminates in a sit down family meal. Here, chef Delfin Jaranilla flexed just exactly what he can do with a pig, including pork head terrine, smokey, greens stewed with ham hocks and crispy-edged pork belly with black rice. While I broke bread at one of the tables in the wine cellar, I’d make a note for future class goers to snag a table in the kitchen for a true full circle moment.

You can see the class in action in our video below:

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The Monthly Butcher Class & Dinner is priced at $125 and includes a butcher class and five-course tasting, beverages not included. Check out the following classes here.