The Burger at Fatty Johnson's
Monday, February 7, 2011 at 05:01PM 
Fatty Johnson’s is a pop-up restaurant [now closed] from Zak Pelaccio of Fatty Crab / Fatty ’Cue fame. The cartoon figure in the logo might be Samuel Johnson—I am not sure. When Pelaccio explained his idea to the Times, he didn’t really clear it up.
It replaces his goat-centric restaurant Cabrito until he figures out what to do with the space, which he told the Times will offer “a slightly more grown-up menu and service style.” The bartenders at FJ are sticking with that story, saying that renovations will begin around March 1. It will still be “Fatty something.”
According to the website, the menu changes daily. Several of the dishes are what Pelaccio called “ham centric,” as if that were a surprise. The other night, he was offering a mean-looking cassoulet (I mean that as a compliment), perhaps suggestive of the more Frenchified cooking style that he has in mind for the permanent restaurant that will be coming next.
I had come for the cheeseburger, which Robert Sietsema of the Village Voice loved so much. There are options with ham and a fried egg on top, but I didn’t think a burger needed all that help.
My favorite burgers have a thicker patty than Fatty Johnson’s, but this one isn’t bad at all. It had a nice, crunchy crust and a faintly smoky flavor. The staff said that it has a 70/30 beef/fat ratio, which is more fat than most burgers. But then, this is a fatty joint, after all.
The fries, or rather, fried confit potatoes, were too greasy and not crunchy enough for my taste, although that didn’t stop me from finishing them.
The burger is a trifle expensive for what you get. It’s $14 by itself. The ham and egg, if you go that route, can punch it up to $18. Neither option includes the fries, which are an extra $7. In contrast, the Minetta Burger at Minetta Tavern—a better product at a better restaurant—is $16 and it includes the fries.
Fatty Johnson’s is a bare-bones space right now, as a pop-up is meant to be. It was close to empty at 6:00 p.m. on a Saturday evening, but the staff said that it normally fills up after 8:00. A number of well known “guest bartenders” have been featured. Nobody famous was on duty when I visited, but we had a good dialogue about cocktails, as the expression goes.
Fatty Johnson’s (50 Carmine St. between Bedford & Bleecker Sts., West Village)
Reader Comments (2)
It seems that NYJ increasingly has nothing worth saying (or reading) about. Was an over-priced diner burger the best you could come up with on a Saturday night in NYC?
You are constantly lamblasting the pro critics (remember the years of Bruni Bashing?) for being off base and irrelevant -- but at least they find interesting places to write about. They also seem to know what they were eating, unlike your frequent lapses of memory. Maybe you need to have a few less cocktails, or at minimum, take notes.
Thanks (I guess) for the comment.
Unlike Frank Bruni and the other pro critics, my work isn’t marketed as a professional product. It isn’t “marketed” at all. It's simply a “journal” of where I was, and what I thought at the time. I hold the pro critics to a higher standard because, you know, that’s why they’re pros.
If you re-read the review, you’ll see that I DID like that burger, but I DO think it's over-priced for what it is, and to me that’s relevant.
As for the places where I choose to dine, in all honesty, that’s up to me. I feel like a burger, I have one. Unlike the pro critics, I am spending my own money and have no public service to fulfill. If you find my posts uninteresting, then don’t read them.