Restaurateur has left imprint on the city
As news broke on Wednesday that chef Matthew Carmichael had admitted to sexually harassing several women with inappropriate comments, some might have wondered which restaurants in Ottawa are Carmichael-run.
Carmichael and chef Jordan Holley are the culinary minds behind four downtown restaurants whose menus range from tacos to Asian fusion to fine dining.
Here is a quick overview of the four eateries.
EL CAMINO
After Carmichael took a year’s hiatus from running a restaurant kitchen, the summer 2013 opening of El Camino on Elgin Street marked his return to Ottawa’s dining scene.
The success of the always-busy taco restaurant paved the way for Carmichael and Holley to open two more highly regarded restaurants, along with a second El Camino location, which opened in the By Ward Market this year.
Serving a variety of cocktails and some of the priciest tacos in town — between $6.50 and $10.50 — the Elgin Street location was a place for “boisterous bites in a raucous setting,” said the Ottawa Citizen’s restaurant critic.
Despite the steep price, El Camino’s tacos were well-received by the Citizen, described as “memorable (and) worth the splurge.”
Taco fillings at El Camino are often non-traditional, with offerings including everything from octopus and ox tongue to kimchee and curry.
The Elgin Street location features in-house dining and a takeout window. Neither location allows for reservations and the Elgin Street location — next door to Datsun, another Carmichael/ Holley restaurant — is often jampacked late into the evening.
DATSUN
Datsun, the pan-Asian answer to its sister taco restaurant El Camino next door on Elgin Street, came onto the scene in 2015 serving an array of Asia’s greatest edible hits.
At the time, Holley said Datsun’s pork belly ramen, steamed buns and dan dan noodles hoped to fill a space “we felt didn’t exist in the city.”
A Citizen food review celebrated the vibrant flavours offered by its variety of small plates.
The restaurant, which is open late on weekends, is often bumping with a younger crowd sipping cocktails and chowing down on dumplings and shrimp burgers. Prices are in the mid- to upper-level range, with small plates priced from $9 to $20.
RIVIERA
When Riviera opened on Sparks Street in the summer of 2016, it was billed as the parliamentary precinct’s new chi-chi restaurant, meant to replace the shuttered Hy’s Steakhouse, a previous hot spot for politicos and wheelers and dealers.
The restaurant delivered on that expectation quickly — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been known to frequent Riviera — with dinner reservations booking up quickly and days in advance.
The Citizen lauded it in a review and a number of its meals earned mentions in the Citizen’s 2016 yearend review of best dishes in Ottawa.
Located in a former CIBC branch, Riviera is a 105-seat restaurant that offers high-end dining, with mains ranging in price from $28 to $44.
Accolades for Riviera weren’t confined to Ottawa, either.
Recently, the restaurant was named one of Canada’s top 10 new restaurants of 2017 by enRoute, Air Canada’s inflight magazine.
It ranked seventh on the popular annual list. The last time an Ottawa restaurant cracked the list was in 2013.
As well, the restaurant was noted as a “dose of urban chic” in a New York Times Ottawa travel feature.