Restaurant Review: Johnny Fontane’s in Leeds

It was so good we’d hire a charabanc from Leeds and make a special trip, usually to celebrate a birthday. The place was littered with 50s American ephemera: juke boxes, red Formica bars, checked table cloths and vintage film posters. Classic songs from the era played throughout and we all sang along to Hernando’s Hideaway, Tutti Frutti and That’s Amore.

Waiters dressed like Sandy and Danny from Grease served your (half decent) burger then a particular tune would strike up and they all got up on the tables and did a routine. It was beyond kitsch.

Johnny Fontane’s has most of the above without the dancing waiters and the half decent burger.

Someone’s taken time to get the design detail right; it’s a clattery hangar of a place, but a good atmosphere has been created – it’s full-on American retro and a fun place to walk into, bright, colourful, funky.

There’s perhaps a bit too much red plastic (chairs, tables, plates) but on a filthy lunchtime with rain bouncing off the pavements it put a smile on our damp faces.

We’re told that owners the Abboudi Brothers put some serious research time in stateside in an endeavour to bring the diner vibe back home. Décor-wise this stands up, but evidence of strong time spent in a kitchen is slim.

Basically it’s about burgers. Beef, pork, chicken and falafel, with sides of fries, rings, wings and ribs. Coleslaw optional. I love a good burger. They’re enjoying a renaissance, appearing regularly on menus in pubs and restaurants. I’ve had some of the finest in the last year or so; at the brilliant Anvil pub in Sawdon just outside Scarborough I eat little else, much to the bemusement of the chef. I’m no Jimmy Doherty but even I make my own and they’re not difficult.

So quite how a professional kitchen can send out sad, flat flavourless ones is a mystery. The most successful for me was Johnny’s Pulled Pork (stop sniggering at the back) because I could ditch the bun and enjoy the slow cooked, tender meat unencumbered.

Oh the bun. I know it’s tricky to get the right burger bun; too crusty and it’s wrong, too flabby and it’s well, flabby. These buns give flabby a new meaning. Limp fries arrive shaken in “Johnny’s unique blend of Cajun spices” which makes them slightly spicy but mostly dusty.

Onion rings and wings are the same colour, a sort of murky brown; I think they’ve had the Cajun spice treatment too. I’m slightly wary of ubiquitously dark brown food unless it’s sausages. To paraphrase Dean Martin, Memories are not Made of This.

A peanut butter shake is Returned to Sender (wrong flavour) and when the replacement arrives it’s the same but with added clumps so I end up pushing it round the glass with the straw in a desultory fashion.

Service from a bunch of hipsters 
who look as if they’ve strayed into 
the wrong job is relaxed to the point of ennui.

Its location on Great George Street 
will ensure a steady stream of office workers, students and anaesthetists. 
No doubt around Christmas it will be rocking. But when someone in accounts suggests it for Tracy in HR’s birthday, put a ceiling on your expectations and you’ll do okay.

Being critical of such a jolly place makes me feel a bit of a Hound Dog and I’m loathe to say it but Johnny Fontane is a Great Pretender.

Johnny Fontane’s, 40 Great 
George Street, Leeds LS1 3DL. 0113 245 5705 www.johnnyfontanes.com