Latin Food, More Than You Think
Jhonny’s Burger brings Brazilian burger culture to Vancouver — handcrafted X-burgers, bold Latin food, and a late-night vibe that’s completely different.
What people get wrong about Latin Food
If you ask almost all the Vancouverites to name some Latin dish you will hear most of all “Tacos”, sometimes “Empanadas”, and also a lot of “Spicy food”, and honestly that ones are wonderful. But Latin food is a continent, not only a category, and, there is a dozens of countries, each one with centuries of culinary identity and also a gigantic diversity of options shaped by Indigenous traditions, African influences, Portuguese and Spanish roots, and a lot of immigration mixed cultures.
Then comes the burger, where alone he tells his story. In Brazil, the burger is not an “American food” in some kind of a disguise, he evolved to something else, to something with his own terms. Coming from street corners, small lanchonetes (joints), late night spots that families have run for decades, food trucks, and some other places where the X-burge was born, and even with that they don`t play by the same rules.
A culture built around the counter
In the small cities of Brazil, the burger shop is where a lot of different things happens, we can say everything. You go after a soccer game, you go when you are doing some kind of celebration, or when you are sad, or when your fridge is empty. The burger is the occasion, its a emotional weight, where the sense of belonging and place comes with an awesome meal from somewhere that cares, and that is what Jhonny’s Burger is trying to give and bring to Vancouver, not a trend, not a rebrand, it is the culture that exists in our roots, that never had a proper home here yet.
Flavor that doesn`t say sorry
Latin food is genuine in a way that something becomes when it`s been refined over the generations. The Brazilian X-burger might have some strange ingredients for some people that`s not used to it, like catupiry cream cheese, corn, chopped pieces of ham, some seasoned patties, brioche buns and also different types of buns that somehow holds everything together without falling apart and every component that we have in it are intentional. This is the standard that Jhoonys have and holds, its not a “gourmet” X-burger, it’s something just good and simple, but the kind of good that leaves you thinking about it in the next day.
Why it`s called X, and why that Matters
This name comes from the Portuguese mispronunciation of the word “cheese”, which in the Portuguese alphabet sounds like “X” when the people said that fast. X – Burger, X – salad, X – Tudo (everything), becomes a naming system that grew out of necessity in small Brazilian shops where the menus are handwritten and categories had to move fast, now this is a identity in the whole country. If you want to learn more about that, you can check our other content “Why Brazilian Burger Names Start With “X”” and discover the whole history behind.
More Ingredients equals philosophy
The X-Burger isn`t defined only by a simple recipe, it`s defined by attitude, freshness over frozen stuff, handmade over manufactured, local ingredients to infuse belongness, a splendorous flavor without being complicated. The Brazilian version of the X-Burger was never trying to compete with the American one, the Brazilian version was just trying to feed people well and gave them the feeling of “I want more”.
At Jhoonys burger we have brought that philosophy to Vancouver, our ingredients change with what we have available here but the technique stays the same and stays consistent which leads us to a result that feels different from every other burger that you have tried here.
A cultural fusion that makes sense
Everyone knows that Vancouver is one of the most food diverse cities in the world, if you walk down lets say Robson Street you will pass ramen places, sushi places, Persian kebabs, Filipino food, Mexican Tacos, Colombian Empanadas, only within a few walking blocks. This city has always been open to the food market that comes from somewhere real. And the Brazilian food hasn`t had its moment here yet. Of course we have some events, some places that had a kind of a Brazilian food, but nothing that commits to what the Brazilian burger culture actually is, and Jhonny’s is what brings that.
The feeling of a small city in a big city
The thing that makes Brazilian X-burger really special is their scale, they are not chains, they are not franchises, they are places where the persons making your burger knows what actually they are doing, and actually cares about it, this personal quality of care is rare in a big city. Jhonny’s are not trying to be a brand in the trendiness sense, Jhoonys is trying to be a place in Vancouver that feels like home.
And that is why we say Latin food in Vancouver is more than you think. The Latin community in Vancouver is growing, that’s a fact, and also, the people from others cultures, people outside the Latin people community are curious, and that we comes, trying to show that Jhoonys Burger with their handmade burger are also Latin food.