Chef JJ Johnson Likes to Experiment With Breakfast

Johnson, who spent Labor Day in the Caribbean. Illustration: Sarah Kilcoyne

Last time the Grub Street Diet checked in with the chef JJ Johnson, he’d just left his position at Minton’s to move to a residency and had recently welcomed twins. Now seemed like a good time to follow up since so much has changed: His fast-casual chain, Fieldtrip, has just expanded to three locations. His cookbook, The Simple Art of Rice, will be out next week. In October, he’ll host a 50 Years of Hip Hop cookout with Rev Run and Ice-T during this year’s New York City Wine & Food Festival. And this past week, he was in the Bahamas for a two-week chef residency at the Atlantis resort’s Bimini Road restaurant. We caught up with him just as his family — including the twins, who are now 6 — were arriving. Their first stop in the Caribbean? Shake Shack, of course. 

Thursday, August 31
I got up at 6:30. I’m a pretty early riser because I’m always on our dog’s schedule, but I was in the Bahamas, so my dog wasn’t with me. Typically, this is not what I would eat, but I’d heard whispers around the resort that a guava doughnut from Murray’s Delicatessen was the thing to get. It was really delicious. They sell out every morning, so you have to go early.

My family arrived in the Bahamas that afternoon, and my kids were starving. We went to the new Shake Shack in the resort. It was impeccable and massive, with the aquarium all through it. Our classic order is Shackburgers and fries, but we tried a few new things: the rum punch and the sunset shake made with mango-passionfruit custard. The burger was the same as at any other Shake Shack in the world, aside from the massive fish swimming in a tank next to me.

I spent the afternoon shooting a few promo videos for my cookbook because launch day is in a week. This residency is the longest I’ve done, but I’m still in touch with my team in New York to check in on Fieldtrip. So I’m trying to find the perfect angle to shoot something one minute, and then the next I’m sending stuff to the team back home. Being at the hotel helped me lock in without any other distractions. If I were trying to do the same thing at the restaurants, I’d be worrying about the food, talking to customers, or cooking on the line. That doesn’t happen here. I don’t know if they’re happy that I’m out here looking at the blue sea and the palm trees, but I’m still in gear. I’m always around to help.

I had to try the rum punch at the lobby bar. If I had to compare it to the Shake Shack punch, the Lobby Bar definitely wins. I’m not a sweet drinker. I’m typically a guy who orders drinks on the rocks, but this was solid. The guys at the bar had smiles on their faces, and when I got it, I knew I was getting their energy.

Friday, September 1
I woke up while my family was still sleeping. I was nervous because I was one day out from my takeover at the restaurant. I grabbed an espresso — not something I normally do. I am not a coffee guy. I’m just naturally energetic. I hit the gym and did a Bootcamp HIIT class outside. It was rough, and I am a Barry’s regular back in New York.

When I got back, my family was having bagels. I ate a fruit plate with very fresh, very juicy mango, papaya, and melon. The papaya was spectacular.

My family went to the water park, and I went to the kitchen to do a final tasting with the team to try the entire menu. I’ve been working on this new concept of a Caribbean brasserie, a celebration of the French Caribbean. A lot of the inspiration came from making things people can’t make at home. People automatically want to order things like duck or head-on prawns; they don’t know how to cook them.

One of the local line cooks I was working with brought a beef patty from the Village Convenience store across the street.  He told me that they make handmade beef patties, and he came back with a traditional beef patty with barley in it. The patty dough was light and flaky. It was really good, really warm.

For dinner, we went over to Chop Stix at the resort, which has its own Chef JJ. He’d come by for the first tasting we had for my menu, for resort staff. We started off with painkillers and mai tais. The painkiller was no joke. It was beautiful; they grated some fresh nutmeg on top. Such a nice touch. Then JJ did an off-menu dim-sum dinner for my family. He made this seabass shumai with tamarind glaze, pumpkin sticky rice, shrimp shumai, and a scallion shrimp cake, which was super-crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside, a little oily on your fingers.

Saturday, September 2
Typically, I like to experiment with breakfast — hit different spots, cook different things — but when you have 6-year-old twins, you keep going back to scrambled eggs, bagels, home fries, and French toast. I usually eat the scraps of whatever they don’t want. They got so excited for French toast at the hotel, so as much as I’d want to try something else … you have to let 6-year-olds be 6-year-olds.

The last time I was at the resort, everyone raved about the conch salad from McKenzie’s Fresh Fish & Conch, so I brought my team down to experience it. I learned that the longer it marinates, the tougher it gets. But this spot makes it fresh right in front of you to keep it tender and delicious. They mix it up with lime, chiles, and tomatoes.

I knew I would have a late-night dinner since I was going to be on the line cooking. I still have these moments now where I’m like, Okay, are people really gonna come? Do they really know who I am? As you get older you start to doubt yourself a little bit. But seeing this team that I’d never worked with before be really excited about the menu items, cheering on the rib-eye or the duck, made me smile. We wound up doing 699 covers that night, which is wild.

And I got to meet people from around the world who are fans of my cooking They tend to come from predominantly Black communities like Detroit, Harlem, Brooklyn, Oakland, or North Carolina. But I am also starting to meet JJ fans in the middle of America, like Wisconsin or Nashville or the middle of New Jersey.

Six hundred ninety-nine covers in, I was starving. I inhaled four of my oxtail dumplings. Everyone on my team was looking at me because we had to make them again the next day. After the shift ended, we headed over to the Dilly Club, a cocktail lounge known for its rum. We were supposed to be eating dinner there, but we wound up mostly just drinking cocktails with a side of honey-mustard pretzels, ginger-pork bao buns, and Zapp’s barbecue chips. I ordered a drink called the Li’l Darlin with rum, velvet falernum, hibiscus, guava, and lime. It came in a crazy shark mug.

Sunday, September 3
Breakfast with my twins consisted of French toast and pancakes again. I ran over and grabbed those guava doughnuts just to have them in the room.

We hit the water park, and it sucks because all of the rides were for people 48 inches or higher, and my twins are 46 inches. My daughter was saying to the lifeguards, “I know how to swim!” It was this whole back-and-forth conversation. Afterward, I popped over to Shake Shack to grab a salad for me and my wife. We ordered it with chicken tenders on top. Not bad, Shake Shack.

I think it’s important as a chef to sit down in a dining room and eat your food to experience how the guests are trying it. I used to work at a restaurant called Jane, and the chef there, Brian Ellis — who now runs the Smith — would always say, “When you start cooking your own food, you need to sit down in a restaurant and eat it like a customer. You need to know how it feels like how it is to cut, to bite, to drink the water, the whole thing.” So at the end of the night, I sat down with the team to try our menu. I had the local snapper and tuna ceviche with tostones. It was spicy and refreshing. The crispiness of the tostones was amazing. The OG classic is my oxtail dumplings; we had to order a few of those since there were five of us. Next was the lemon-pepper prawns with the head on — I got to swirl it around in the lemon pepper honey sauce. The jerk duck came out amazing. I worked on that really hard with my sous chef. We did it Peking-duck style with hot oil and a tamarind glaze. It comes with matchstick fries and greens seasoning, which is a classic Caribbean seasoning with cayenne, dehydrated onion, garlic, cilantro, and thyme. My Auntie Lane would be very proud that her curry-split-pea rice was on the table. We drank lychee coolers with dinner, which were delicious.

Monday, September 4
I woke up at 10 a.m. The resort’s blackout curtains were a lifesaver. My wife and I probably hadn’t slept till ten since before we had kids. We started the day slowly with room service. Lots of fresh fruit. My son got scrambled eggs with cheese, his go-to. My daughter wanted cereal. It was her first time trying Froot Loops. She’s normally a Honey Nut Cheerios girl, but they didn’t have them. She crushed the Foot Loops, crushed them. Now, I’m sure she’ll want a box in the house, but I’m like … we don’t need any more sugar. They have great moments where they eat really well — my kids aren’t, like, chicken-nugget kids; they’re steak-and-broccoli kids — but then they have other moments where they’re 6-year-olds.

I took a moment with my wife to go to the Fish Fry, which is a huge outdoor food market in Nassau. We pulled up to the Big Yard, which was highly recommended by the kitchen staff here. I got the grilled-seafood platter with lobster tails, shrimp, plantains, potato salad, and coleslaw. It was amazing. I drank a local beer, Sam’s, very refreshing. Then we hit up Twin Brothers; we got a Bahama mama and conch fritters. We were stuffed, but the grilled snapper looked amazing, so we had to get it too. We hung out there for a minute and had to try the frozen daiquiri. It was amazing to relax with my wife and enjoy the warm weather after such hectic nights.

I headed back to Bimini Road for dinner service. After the shift I finished off the night by sipping some tequila on the rocks. Then I ate a cold slice of hotel pizza, and it made me miss New York.