A couple of weeks ago the weekday lunch crowd filled out all of the alfresco patios along Castro Street except for the one in front of Johnny & Sanny’s.
Mountain View residents didn’t seem to notice that the owners of Doppio Zero had opened a new restaurant in Vida’s former digs. We had one of the main dining rooms to ourselves.
Could the occasional sound of the train’s bellowing horns have deterred them? The new Italian spot is situated a few feet closer to the train station than its competitors. But they should have taken the time to step inside. Most of Vida’s upscale features and fixtures—the central terrazzo bar, the plush green banquettes—aren’t showing any signs of wear and tear.
Taking a detour away from Spain and into Italy, the décor now genuflects toward the idealized glamour evinced by Federico Fellini in his 1960 film La Dolce Vita.
Framed black and white film stills featuring Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren evoke the era’s devotion to extravagance (a “Sophia Loren” pizza includes pepperoni, salami, San Marzano tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese for $22). There’s even a hand-painted stencil of a quotation attributed to the director: “Life is a combination of magic and pasta.”
The open shelves hanging above the bar, also retained from the Vida days, are lined with prosecco and champagne bottles, and a step-and-repeat pattern of liquors and liqueurs. The menu isn’t astonishing or inventive; it includes a short list of familiar Italian dishes that the well-trained kitchen prepares with precision and verve.
The plates are nicely composed but, because this is Italian food, never challenging, cold or severe. Spillage is de rigueur here.
High summer is the prime season for harvesting squash. Under their antipasti section, Johnny & Sanny’s is making ultra-thin zucchini fries ($15). They’re actually skinnier than french fries, more like fried shoestring onions. To finish the dish, the cooks shave copious amounts of parmigiano reggiano on top.
When I was a kid, we used to eat at an Italian-American restaurant that served fried zucchini sliced into great, hulking spears. As I bit into them, the blistered core of seeds melted in the mouth. Johnny & Sanny’s approach is less rustic and more elegant but the flavor of the vegetable gets a little lost against the breading but that didn’t stop me from snacking on the pile throughout the meal. A side of lemon basil aioli dip was fine but ketchup or ranch dressing wouldn’t have been bad ideas either.
Burrata ($15), our second shared antipasti, was served with tomato, olives, a vibrant smattering of everyone’s favorite microgreens, and a caponatina of eggplant. A caponatina, I learned, uses a finer chop on the eggplant than a caponata. I liked it better because the texture tasted more like a tapenade than a pasta sauce.
Although the half dozen Roman-style pizzas are key attractions on the menu, the burrata plate assemblage mimicked the flavors of a cold pizza so we opted for the homemade fettuccine pasta ($22). Dotted with cherry tomatoes, the serving was big enough to feed the two of us. I have a love-hate relationship with pesto. If the ratio of ingredients is off, the sauce can be too oily or bitter or both. Johnny & Sanny’s gets the balance right. The basil tasted like it had been freshly pulverized, the color green coating every twisted flank of fettuccine.
Fellini’s ghost is unlikely to cross the Atlantic to visit Mountain View but the kitchen does manage to pay tribute to the “magic and pasta” maxim scribbled on the wall.
Johnny & Sanny’s, open Mon to Thurs 11:30am–2:30pm and 4:30pm–9:30pm (Fri until 10pm), Sat 11:30am–10pm and Sun 11:30am–9pm. 110 Castro St., Mountain View. 650.282.5251. johnnyandsannys.com.
