Chef Joseph Brophy opened the doors of Joey B’s Restaurant in 1992. Before creating the first dish, he vowed to only use the finest ingredients, and prepare each dish with an infusion of passion and creativity.
Critics have been raving ever since.
Diners agree…Joey B’s is Rochester’s best.
Chef Brophy cooks classic Continental cuisine – a mixture of French and American influences filtered through an affection for meat and potatoes that dominated 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, he travelled around the state, eventually accepting a two-year stage with Chef Jean Morel. Morel’s L’hostellerie Bressane 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: escargot in puff pastry, baked brie, French onion soup en croute, and caesar salad; steak au poivre, duck a l’orange, shrimp scampi, and sea scallop gratin, as well as rack of lamb, and veal and pork tenderloin. 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, served with toast points.