"Johnny's, a tidy new restaurant in East Williamsburg that opened in July, specializes in chifa, a Peruvian-Cantonese fusion that's one of the world's great comfort cuisines: dumplings, stir fries, fried rice, the charcoal-kissed rotisserie chicken known as pollo a la brasa, and endless amounts of aji verde, a spicy, cilantro-laden green-chile sauce-all of it hearty, punchy, and filling. The restaurant is named for the late father of the owners, the sister-and-brother pair Stephanie Tang and John Tang."
"Johnny picked up the business of pollo a la brasa from his own father, Yuen Jam Tan, who brought his family from Hong Kong to Peru in the nineteen-sixties, learned the art of the rotisserie, and then, in the seventies, brought it to Queens. In a recent conversation, Stephanie told me that Tan's original restaurant, Peking BBQ, in Woodside, is still open, now run by one of her uncles."
"Her mother, who has two rotisserie restaurants, one in New Jersey and one in Sunset Park, was looking to open a second Brooklyn location when she came across this corner storefront in Williamsburg. Stephanie, who has a day job in the fashion industry and lives just a few blocks away from the corner spot that became Johnny's, started to have visions of something outside the established formula."
Johnny's in East Williamsburg opened in July and focuses on chifa, a Peruvian-Cantonese comfort cuisine featuring dumplings, stir fries, fried rice, charcoal-kissed pollo a la brasa, and abundant aji verde. The restaurant continues a family rotisserie lineage originating with Yuen Jam Tan, who moved from Hong Kong to Peru and later brought the rotisserie tradition to Queens. The extended family operates about a dozen rotisserie restaurants around New York City, typically low-frills, high-volume takeout spots. The Williamsburg location reframes that formula as a casual sitdown space with cocktails, cool lighting, artwork, and an elevated yet hearty menu.
Read at The New Yorker
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