Jane's

Jane's
1653-1655 W Cortland St.

Chicago, IL 60622

BreakfasT: M-F, 6:30-3

Brunch: Sa/Sun, 10-2:30

I keep finding myself in really classy breakfast places lately. It's kind of weird.

Jane's, despite being somewhat tricky to get to (or at least, I always get mixed up in the process) rarely has much of a wait, and has an extremely elegant interior. Fresh flowers on every table, nice decor - it's a very pleasant place. The menu is also upscale, chipotle sauces, grilled salmon, etc. I may be wrong about this, but it seems to me that the weekday breakfast menu is not identical to the weekend brunch menu, and I think I actually like the weekday breakfast menu more. But I'm basing this on two brunch visits and one breakfast visit that were separated by a sea of almost a year, so I might be wrong. 

Anyhow. Today, I had the 3 eggs sunny side up with andouille hash. Curiously, this was accompanied by a side of potatoes, which seemed somewhat redundant, given the hash, but ok. The eggs were cooked perfectly, and the andouille hash was fairly flavorful, but the potatoes were on the mushy side, which really disappointed me. I had ordered a side of salsa, and this turned out to be a mistake. First off, what I had actually wanted was pico de gallo, it just hadn't occurred to me that this place was so classy as to distinguish between the two. My bad. Anyhow, the salsa was, for starters, warm, which really threw me off. Secondly, it was a smoky kind of sauce that was completely overpowered by a specific herb that for some reason I can't identify, but will probably be tasting for the rest of the day. My companions ordered eggs benedict and the breakfast burrito, and enjoyed them mightily. But their potatoes were mushy too. However! The coffee was fantastic, Intelligentsia brand and bottomless - quite a treat. 

I dunno. I don't wanna be a downer about this place, because it's really quite nice, but I think it suffers from being a little too frou-frou for my taste. If you're going to be frou-frou, I feel, you really need to be delivering some pretty amazing food. And, like so many expensive Chicago dining options, this place doesn't quite live up to itself. The food is good, but not amazing, which makes it seem somewhat pretentious, especially when coupled with the highly elegant, but somewhat formal, interior. It just seems to be taking itself a wee bit too seriously.

Oh, but I should also mention, what with this lovely weather, that they do have outdoor seating options. We were not so fortunate as to secure a space outside, but theoretically, it could be done. Granted, you've got the expressway looming over you, but nonetheless, I'll bet it's pleasant.