Exquisite preserves made from oranges
What: Seville orange and cocoanib marmalade from Red Door Provisions. Why: It’s beautiful to look at and even better to taste: bright, bitter Seville orange is studded with dark cocoa nibs, making a fabulous spread for toast or scones, a terrific topping for crepes or waffles, or a knockout start to a sauce or glaze for duck or roast chicken. Where: Red Door Provisions, a shop and café at 117 Beechwood Ave., which opened in October. How much: $10 for a 270 mL jar. When: This is a seasonal pleasure: Seville oranges are available just from mid-January to March. This batch of made-inOttawa preserves was poured into jars just last week and will be available only while quantities last. What else: Go for the preserves, but stay for the tea, scones or a grilled cheese.
“We opened as a preserve shop with a café built around it, but we quickly realized that the community was telling us the opposite,” says chef-owner Lauren Power. “The café has been way more popular than we anticipated.” No wonder: It has an array of beautiful baked goods (some of which are gluten free), 21 kinds of tea, coffee from Toronto’s Pilot roasters, house-made granola parfaits, six to eight types of grilled cheese sandwiches, soup of the day, scones and even house-made sodas, such as grapefruit-vanilla-rose or lemon-lavender.
Amid framed art prints, the pretty preserves are stacked up neatly on shelves.
“I really do think of them as beautiful little works of art,” says Power, 30, who born and raised in Chelsea, but studied art in Halifax and went to culinary school in Montreal.
After returning to the Ottawa area, she began her preserves business while she worked on a farm in Chelsea; she uses local produce in everything from the sriracha pickled carrots (called Rooster + Rabbit) to the rosemary pickled shallots. What next: The café has just five tables and a small counter, but come spring, it will expand outside to an outdoor terrace to accommodate another 20 tables. More: reddoorprovisions.com