Judging from the friendly and casual atmosphere, I suspect that no one ever is allowed to feel embarrassed for not knowing that airline chicken is the European way of preparing chicken breast.
On the plate, the chicken might look poised for flight, with its wing drum bone left intact for extra flavor.
To continue the flight metaphor, going the extra mile is the main operating principle here.
The place doesn't serve mere pizza, for instance. The dough is grilled to add texture and crispness, then baked in an open brick hearth.
Overall, Johnathan's Grill is that rare restaurant that seems to embrace suburbia's conflicting facets: family-centered and sophisticated.
The menu includes several seafood appetizers, but there's nothing as ordinary as fried calamari or shrimp cocktail.
Instead, the appetizers play your taste buds like a violin, ranging from the sweet-and-sour Asian tuna "martini" to the sublime lobster and potato puree.
Although there are entree-size salads on the menu, the roasted beet salad is mysteriously listed as an appetizer - perhaps because it was served only with a tidy bed of micro greens.
A case study in the restaurant's style of presentation, the beets arrived with a stylish sprig of rosemary fixed to a small mound of goat cheese. Reaching for new heights, the beets were served with a tangy hazelnut vinaigrette dressing, and the cheese was baked with honey.
Among the entrees, there are the usual ladies-who-lunch salmon and the trendy sea bass. But these offerings are spruced up with additions, such as crushed pistachios and white-wine butter sauce for the bass.
The salmon had a thick dusting of cinnamon, which made it as fragrant as a spice jar but also gave it a slightly burnished taste, like roasted almonds. Or perhaps that was the pecan brown butter sauce.
