Mother’s Day is right around the corner, and if a bowl of
cereal and a cup of coffee delivered to Mom’s bedside isn’t cutting it anymore,
it’s time to consider going out for brunch or dinner — with the whole family.
Finding a restaurant that’s accepting of (well behaved) children, yet nice
enough to retain a sense of occasion, can be tricky
business. Locating a place where everyone, young and old, can find something on
the menu that they like (and that won’t leave you sweating when the bill
arrives) can be equally challenging. But finding all of this
in a white tablecloth joint that’s also casual enough so you won’t feel too out
of place if your teenager insists on wearing jeans, is a fortunate confluence
of circumstances. If you are lucky enough to find this restaurant
nirvana, it’s still a good idea to make reservations. It is, after all, Mother’s
Day.

Joey B’s is just the place for such occasions. Starting out
in a rambling building on the corner of Whitney and O’Connor Roads a little
over 13 years ago, the restaurant is a Fairport institution, attracting a
steady stream of regulars who are eager to sample Chef Joseph Brophy’s food.  In
2005, the restaurant moved to a plum location overlooking the canal in Packett’sLanding, providing
diners with a nice view and a great vantage point for people watching when the
outside deck is open.

Joey B’s is a study in contrasts and incongruities that
somehow work, creating a restaurant that combines casual service with classic
Continental cuisine. Service is almost aggressively casual for a fancy
restaurant. The waitresses and bus staff in their mismatched polo shirts are
affable and quite knowledgeable, and Chef Brophy
claims that over the years the restaurant has built a repartee with the
regulars who followed the restaurant from its original location, creating a
distinct culture that is unique in the area. Even if you aren’t a regular,
though, the staff at Joey B’s will treat you like you are.

As befits a restaurant in the Continental vein, the
bartender at Joey B’s mixes her cocktails with a heavy hand. My Hendricks and
tonic was deliciously strong, and my companion’s blueberry martini packed a powerful
punch underneath all that sweetness. A pomegranate martini we had on a
subsequent visit had the same pleasantly dizzying effect. When cocktails start
off so strong, it’s usually a sign that people linger over their meals, and dinner
at Joey B’s can very easily stretch past two leisurely hours of well-paced
service. Tables turn slowly, if at all, here so reservations on weekends are a
must. On both of our visits I was surprised to see that people who had arrived
before us were still there when we were settling up and moving on, lost in
conversation over coffee and the remains of dessert.

Chef Brophy cooks classic
Continental cuisine — a mixture of French and Italian influences filtered
through a thoroughly American affection for meat and potatoes that dominated
restaurant menus for almost half a century. Brophy
learned his craft the old fashioned way, starting as a dishwasher when he was 16
years old, and moving through progressively more responsible positions over the
years. In 1982, he started working the line at the Strathallan
Hotel. Two years later he was sous chef, and two years after that he was
promoted to chef, a position he held until the hotel changed hands in 1989.

From there, Brophy travelled around
the state, eventually accepting a two-year stage with Chef Jean Morel. Morel’s L’hostellerieBressane in Hillsdale, New York, was,
for many chefs like Brophy, the place where they
learned the craft and mystery of Continental cuisine as practiced in legendary
restaurants like Lutece, La Cote Basque, and La Caravelle in New York City,
the epicenter of Continental cuisine in the United States.

Chef Brophy’s cooking is an homage to that golden age of American restaurants. The
menu is replete with classics: escargots in puff pastry ($6), baked brie ($7),
French onion soup en croute, and Caesar salad ($5); steak au poivre ($23), duck a l’orange
($17), shrimp scampi ($16), and sea scallop gratin ($16), as well as rack of
lamb, and veal and pork tenderloin ($22, 20, and 14, respectively). Chef Brophy makes a few classically French dishes as well,
including his own country pate, a combination of pork, veal, and a smidge of
chicken liver with duck fat and green peppercorns that is spicy and smooth ($5).
Served with butter toast points, it was delicious with a dab of fresh aioli on and
a bite of house-pickled okra to cut through the fat. I was grateful for the
basket of hot, fresh yeast rolls on the table when the toast points ran out.

Brophy’s steak au poivre was artfully crusted with a mixture of peppercorns,
finished with a rich demiglace, and meltingly tender.
We ordered the steak medium and were delivered a steak that was closer to
medium well, which the kitchen replaced without protest. Both the duck breast
and the veal I had on a previous visit were juicy and flavorful, cooked medium
rare as the chef suggested, but both of them could have stood just a tiny bit
more searing to develop their flavors fully.

The meat on these plates was good,
the veg a nice presentation of shredded zucchini, yellow squash, and carrots
topped with grilled asparagus and roasted red pepper. The star on every plate,
though, was Chef Brophy’s scalloped potatoes.
Sinfully creamy and rich, made with a perfectly smooth bechamel
sauce and topped with melted Grueyere — I don’t think
I’ve ever had a better gratin.

My companion was particularly taken with a shrimp and
pasta dish that proves, once again, that everything is better with cream, lots
of cream ($18). Brophysautees
shrimp with artichoke hearts, spinach, and a bit of red pepper for color,
finishes the dish with a white-wine-sour-cream sauce, and serves it over
lemon-pepper fettuccine. Surprisingly, the sour cream sauce allows the taste of
the relatively mild ingredients to come through admirably in a dish that’s sure
to please even the pickiest of eaters.

I’m aware that Joey B’s offers dessert, I’ve even seen it on
other people’s tables, but I never had the wherewithal to manage anything more
than Chef Brophy’s excellent cabernet sauvignon
sorbet (the scoops separated by generous heaps of whipped cream), shared with
my companion as we lingered into the evening.

This article appears in Apr 28 – May 4, 2010.