OPULENCE ON THE MENU
Raghav Chaudhary is chef and GM of Aiana, a new downtown restaurant and a sign, Peter Hum reports, that fine dining lives on in Ottawa despite the pandemic.
Because this has not exactly been a year of pleasant surprises, I'll start by sharing one with you.
Ottawa, I learned last week, has a recently opened restaurant that kicks off its most lavish dinner with tiny snacks that brim with caviar and truffles.
At Aiana, our tasting-menu experience began with impeccably thin potato-chip cones filled with the prized Acadian sturgeon eggs or, for a momentary vegetarian, the prized end-of-summer fungus from Burgundy. They arrived at our table with a lightly choreographed flourish as two servers placed the amuse-bouches before us in unison. The sight of these amusements promised us gourmet pleasures, and as we munched on them, we became a little giddy.
Mind you, caviar and truffles have not been top of mind for me in 2020. Even for a restaurant critic, life during the pandemic has been more about comfort food and getting by than about celebration or opulence.
And yet, perhaps improbably, we have Aiana pulling out the stops, aspiring to give Ottawans the kind of elevated fine dining that would earn a Michelin star or two if that company's inspectors considered Canadian restaurants.
Aiana, which opened in August, also pioneers in Ottawa a business decision that's been taken at certain U.S. upscale restaurants.
Aiana's lofty prices include service charges, ensuring that its staff receive progressive wages, Devinder Chaudhary, Aiana's owner and a consulting accountant, told me.
Among those workers is Raghav Chaudhary, Aiana's executive chef and Devinder's 27-year-old son, an Ottawa native who was trained at the Culinary Institute of America and has worked at Michelin-starred restaurants in San Francisco and Sweden.
So, while some mains at Aiana are just under $40, a roast chicken dinner for two costs $80 and a nine-course tasting menu comes in at $185, there are good reasons and even mitigations. I think tipping wasn't even an option when I paid.
I have heard some very knowledgeable restaurant-goers in Ottawa say a place like Aiana, with its high prices, fondness for caviar and truffles, and slightly more formal service, is too rich for the city's blood, pandemic or no pandemic. I'd like to disagree.
It is true that COVID-19 has forced many leading Ottawa restaurants to pivot to making simpler, takeout fare a priority. (Aiana, too, offers its fare to go.) It's also true that other restaurants seeking to dazzle with tasting menus price them more modestly. Atelier's 12-course menu is $135. Alice's vegetable-forward tasting menu is $120. Carben's eight-course tasting menu, which delighted us earlier this fall, is just $80.
But places like Atelier, Alice and Carben, for all of their quality and innovation, are still neighbourhood restaurants with modest settings. Aiana, in the Sun Life Financial Centre, is closer to Beckta on Elgin Street, which has a $125 tasting menu but also $48 main courses, and Riviera, which has no tasting menu but offers main courses topping $45 as well as $100 caviar service. These are restaurants that are not shy about extolling luxury as a temporary indulgence.
Even if I wasn't partial to caviar and truffles, I think Ottawa, as the capital of a G7 country, ought to have restaurants that champion that kind of haute cuisine — provided they meet the high standards they should set for themselves.
For the most part, Aiana's ninecourse tasting menu — a well-paced mix of diverse items from the à la carte menu and some exclusive delicacies — kept the delights coming, although some slight constructive criticisms were warranted.
After those splendid potato-chip cones, the lightly curried and warming squash soup was a triumph, poured tableside and replete with puffed wild rice, sumac-dusted crème fraîche and wee, crunchy maple leaves made of squash.
Smoked sturgeon pâté, topped with caviar and served with some buttery brioche sticks, made me swoon, while my friend's vegetarian course, a quinoa porridge, was strikingly creamy (enriched with Boursin cheese, we were told) and comforting.
We thought our respective tartars — some finely chopped bison and beet — were well-made but could have popped more in terms of salt and acidity. After came a more substantial but sophisticated course. For me, a lightly spiced half quail was a touch dry but benefited from some punchy pickled ground cherries and a cute, miniature Scotch egg. Its vegetarian counterpart replaced the bird with oblongs of rutabaga.
Then, we were bowled over by two small wonders — a perfect chocolate-foie gras macaron, which leaned more into its savouriness, and a mushroom tart of concentrated flavour.
Of the final savoury courses, the meatier option topped the vegetarian alternative. I received a deeply beefy pithivier (a puff pastry pie stuffed with Wagyu beef trimmings and mushrooms) with parsnip purée and jus, both supremely rich. My friend's bowl of tomato-sauced farro was fine, but suffered in comparison with the more special pithivier.
A wave of sweets concluded dinner — too-generous servings of sweet ginger granité, a complex, satisfying hazelnut tart dessert, and then some bonbons. We were too stuffed to have coffee or tea.
I also had an easier-on-the-budget lunch at Aiana last week. If you accept the proposition that a serving of popcorn can cost $12, Aiana's dressed-up popcorn, which mixes kernels coated in caramel and truffle-oiled corn, is irresistible. A Wagyu burger ($26) was big, juicy and flavourfully garnished. A massive serving of short ribs ($37) had great depth of flavour, as well as some shaved black truffles, more of that fine parsnip purée and some on-point lentils.
At both visits, service was welltrained and attentive, but also unstuffy — perhaps just a bit more deferential and a bit less chummy than at other upscale restaurants. At lunch and dinner, chef Chaudhary came to our table and to see other guests, too.
Designed by Linebox Studio, Aiana's space is a beautiful, welcoming mix of teal blues and greys, with well-distanced tables positioned under posh lighting and flanked by a stunning open kitchen on one side and an impressive bar and wall of wines on the other.
Aiana's instrumental groove music was occasionally a little intrusive, although that might have been less noticeable had the restaurant been blessed with the uplifting buzz of conversations and clinking glasses in the background.
Indeed, the only significant letdown about Aiana was something practically beyond its control — that it felt more empty than full of guests when we visited, presumably because of the pandemic's impact on our collective morale and finances.
That's really regrettable, because it does feel as if the Chaudharys are on their way to providing Ottawa with a distinctive, tip-top restaurant that could be the latest jewel on our dining scene. Hopefully, they can prevail against COVID-19.