Caleb Westphal hasn’t missed a Friday fish fry since 2013. Follow his never-ending adventures—sponsored by Miller High Life—HERE. This week: fish fry #603, at Johnny Manhattan’s in Hubertus, Wisconsin.
I can be a grump. Don’t get me wrong, life is great. But sometimes I’m a bit of a grump like The Old Man in A Christmas Story. He grumbles and weaves “a tapestry of obscenity” when the furnace acts up. I get annoyed by minor matters and constantly swear under my breath. He really wants to eat turkey on Christmas, but then the neighbor’s hounds eat it, making him extra grumpy, and he has to settle for Peking duck. I really want to eat a fish fry every Friday, and until I get one, well, I can be a bit grumpy, too.
More than anything, The Old Man loves his leg lamp. I don’t have a leg lamp, but as I was eating a fish fry at Johnny Manhattan’s this past Friday, and the grumpiness was subsiding, I looked to my left and noticed I was dining with a leg lamp. It wasn’t merely sitting in the corner. It had its own table in the center of the dining room! I asked my server about it and she said it used to be at the host stand and people always asked about it. I’d say it’s in an even more distinguished place now.
Johnny Manhattan’s (3718 Hubertus Rd., Hubertus; 262-628-7700) celebrated its silver anniversary last year. John Meleski, who went by Johnny Manhattan, opened it with his wife Nancy. Johnny passed away in 2008, but Nancy kept the restaurant going, and it is still owned by the family. I’m not sure I was aware of the place until I spotted it in April 2022 while going to a fish fry at Sloppy Joe’s Saloon and Spoon, which is located almost directly across from it. I referred to it as a “steakhouse” in my article about Sloppy Joe’s, when also noting the post office, church building, and red barn in the immediate vicinity. That’s Hubertus!
When I walked into Johnny Manhattan’s on Friday and asked for a table for one, I was asked for my first and last name and phone number. I thought perhaps this was because there would be a wait—I had seen online that they take reservations but hadn’t made one—although it was before 5 p.m. and not yet that busy. I ended up being seated immediately, and was left wondering if I had been added to a mailing list, and left hoping that I would be sent coupons for fish frys.
I was seated at table 28, one of the two-seater booths that line the area between the main dining room and the imposing bar. Johnny Manhattan’s website says they are “classy, yet casual,” while their exterior sign says they are “classy, but casual.” The woodwork is ornate, there’s a fireplace, and tables are set in advance with empty water glasses and silverware wrapped in cloth napkins. Songs like “Black Cow” by Steely Dan and “Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl)” by Looking Glass play overhead. People are dressed up, sort of. A leg lamp sits on the center table. Yep, classy, but casual.
I zeroed in on the featured menu, where the fish fry options were listed. There was Champagne battered cod with crinkle cut fries ($26), and panko breaded perch with potato pancakes and “chefs vegetables” ($29). There also was blackened walleye with vegetable pearl couscous and a lemon pepper sauce ($35). I was leaning towards the perch, but after my server highlighted the cod when going over the specials, and after reflecting on how rare fish battered in Champagne is—I think I had it once, sometime in the early 2010s, at Water Buffalo, a restaurant that was on Water Street in Milwaukee that is now closed—I swung for the cod. I don’t often leave behind New England clam chowder ($6 cup/$8 bowl), and pulled a cup of it along for the ride.
Looking like a pretty picture, the chowder was presented on a saucer with a doily, and was topped with parsley. The herb, fresh as if it was picked from the garden in the morning dew, didn’t just augment the appearance, it brought real flavor. There were a lot of small clams swimming around, bumping up against bigger carrot and celery chunks, along with some potatoes. The menu listed cream as one of the ingredients—and that makes sense, because the chowder’s white, milky creaminess stood out.
The plate of fish and sides came out on a plate shaped like a fish. The slaw had a healthy dose of celery seeds and was juicy, but not to the point of being juicelogged, allowing for a refreshing crunch to come through. If all the coleslaws of the world were lined up, this one would be at the front half of the pack. Perhaps the biggest drawback of choosing the cod over the perch was that it came with crinkle cut fries instead of potato pancakes. They were fine, and cooked and salted satisfactorily, but I couldn’t decouple them from the kind I make in my oven that I pick up in a bag from the grocery store. There just isn’t much room for growth with crinkle cut fries. There wasn’t any rye bread on the plate, but I was brought a small slice of baked bread, wrapped in cloth in a basket, along with a dish of olive oil and vinegar for dipping.
The cod was fried perfectly, with the batter having a light crispness and neither being too thick nor too thin. The flavor coming through wasn’t beer—it must have been Champagne! Not much more could be asked for with the batter, and the cod itself was in the sweet spot as well. It was chunky, not rubbery, and flaked in the right places. The tartar sauce was extra tangy and extra sweet, those qualities blending together seamlessly so that the tang prevented the sweetness from being saccharine, and the sweetness prevented the tang from having too much of a bite. Mayonnaise (or something close to it) and relish formed most of the base, but I found at least one piece of what I think was red bell pepper mixed in.
Overall, it was great fried cod, and with the tartar added in, it was even better. The only problem was there were only two pieces, which meant the greatness could only go so far. It’s my belief that any fish fry should come with three pieces. Minimum. Others who have seen the two-piece cod fry agree. It was as recent as 2024 that the Champagne cod fry came with three pieces of fish, and a newspaper record indicates that Johnny Manhattan’s used to offer all-you-can-eat cod. Sure, Champagne might raise the price of a fish fry a bit, but $26 for a two-piece cod fish fry still seems steep.
But this is no time to be a grump. The Champagne battered cod and the tartar were top tier, the coleslaw exceeded the quality of most slaws, and there was a bread basket to boot. The Old Man would have been in dining heaven eating next to the leg lamp at Johnny Manhattans, but all I needed to get to heaven was a plate shaped like a fish with some fish on it.
Takeaways: Classy, but casual dining with a leg lamp; creamy chowder topped with fresh parsley; worthy cod with a great Champagne batter; sweet and tangy tartar; better than average coleslaw; crinkle cut fries are okay.
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