Johnny’s Downtown
1406 West 6th Street
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
216-623-0055

As a wedding present, friends of ours took Jessie and I out to dinner last weekend at Johnny’s Downtown. That’s not to be confused with Johnny’s Bar, which shouldn’t be confused with Johnny’s Bistro and certainly not Johnny’s Little Bar. Got that? Me either. How about a little freaking creativity from the marketing department?

We arrived near seven on a Saturday night, but only a table or two was seated with patrons. Prior to coming to Johnny’s I had read in a number of locations online that they had great food, but the service really sucked. What was worse is that most of the reviews seemed to imply a sense of arrogance amongst the waitstaff. Some even went so far as to say that they would not return due to the poor service. What we experienced couldn’t have been more opposite.

Johnny’s Downtown is arranged in a long narrow dining room that is lined with booths in the middle and larger tables near the front windows. The decor reminded me of a sophisticated steak house with dark wood lining the walls and burgundy accents throughout. (Cue queer eye for the straight guy music.) We were seated in one of those middle booths and our server arrived promptly to take our drink orders.

Our waiter’s name was Joe and he was just fantastic. He was everything you could possible ask for in a waiter. Joe was very knowledgeable about the food offerings, provided some excellent wine suggestions and was attentive to our every need. Now, I know it sounds like I have a mancrush on Joe, but I wanted to mention what a great job he did considering all of the other reviews I had read.

The menu offered a wide variety of dishes, but it certainly had a heavy concentration on meat. The meals ranged in price from $25 – $45, braised beef short ribs on the lower end and veal chops leading the pack. There were a number of great looking dishes, but I settled on the veal medallions in a veal demi glace.

My meal arrived very well presented on a deep plate, the medallions topped with chopped shitake mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes, surrounded by the dark demi glace. There were also a few fresh vegetables, a little bushel of squash and a potato pancake.

The veal was superb! It was cooked perfectly medium with a nice charred crust. It, along with the mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes and sauce, made for an excellent bite. The dish was served with two medallions, but I could have easily eaten a few more. Just great. The rest of the dish though, left a bit to be desired.

The fresh vegetables on the plate were a bit perplexing as they were warm, but very hard. Other than possibly a nice garnish, they lent nothing to the meal. I was also disappointed with my scalloped potato pancake, a specialty of Johnny’s. The potatoes lacked any recognizable flavor, that is unless you consider cold to be a flavor. I don’t know why but they were ice cold which caused some of their starches to get working causing a very gummy texture. Gummy isn’t yummy. (Rachel Ray is totally going to steal that.)

As I mentioned before, the veal demi glace was magnificent. I just wish there wasn’t so much of it. The deep plate the dish was served on allowed for a pool of sauce 1/8 inch deep to cover everything. While I enjoyed having some sauce for the veal medallions, I could have done without it on my vegetables and potatoes. Although it did give the potatoes some flavor.

All that nitpicking aside I really did enjoy my meal at Johnny’s Downtown. Normally, I would have overlooked those things, but Cleveland is a blue-collar town and if a guy is going to pay $35 for a dish, it better be perfect. There aren’t too many places in Cleveland where you can have a truly upscale meal, but Johnny’s Downtown certainly fits that bill. It provided a great ambiance, excellent service and wonderful food, definitely the place to keep in mind when the old lady starts complaining that you “never take her anywhere nice.”

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