Plus City Bites: Notable restaurant and food happenings
Comfort Food In Chelsea He dreamed of opening his own restaurant by the age of 30, and Jonathan Harris just about did it, signing the lease for Tante Carole last year on October 1 — his 31st birthday. The accomplished chef, whose previous gigs have included The Courtyard, Brut Cantina and, most recently, sous-chef to Che Chartrand at the Wakefield Mill Inn, saw the “For Lease” sign in front of the former Café Soup’Herbe on a fall drive. Within days, he had committed. Harris and fiancé/chef de cuisine Suyeon Myeong then spent the next four months renovating the space with the help of family and friends, orchestrating a soft opening in late February as they awaited their liquor licence. The restaurant’s name has guided the ambience and menu — “Tante Carole is a fictional character, a welcoming aunt who we picture making us feel at home and cooking awesome comfort food,” explains Harris, who grew up in Quebec. “We picture everyone congregating here — parents, grandparents, kids. It will be really relaxed.” Of course, Tante Carole has fun in the kitchen, taking Canadian stick-to-yourbones dishes and infusing them with her own unique touches. “She likes to play a little.” 168, ch. Old Chelsea, Chelsea. Say Cheese! She’s known as @TheCheesePoet on Twitter, a moniker that aptly describes chef Erin Harris’s passion for, as she puts it, “the art and science of fine cheeses.” The native of London, Ontario recently decamped to Ottawa to take up a position as cheese manager at the new Sobeys Urban Fresh store slated to open later this spring. (Located just blocks from Parliament Hill in Claridge’s new Tribeca condo tower, the Centretown grocery store is aimed at the upscale downtown market.) On her agenda? Educating Ottawa consumers about local, regional, and international cheeses. Want to get to know her better? Check out Harris — one of just 15 Certified Cheese Professionals in all of Canada — throwing it down in the kitchen in episode two of the current season of Chopped Canada on the Food TV Network. On a Roll With spring comes the return of the street cart. When the city rolled out the newest licences, City Bites was tickled to see that gelato could be on the lunchtime menu at Sparks and Bank, where Stella Luna Gelato Café’s Tammy Giuliani is poised to park her cart. Asked what’s on the menu, she wooed us with the Stella Luna classics — Sicilian pistachio and mascarpone brownie — then sealed the deal with a couple of cool boozy concoctions. Virgin mojito gelato, anyone? How about strawberries and champagne in a cone? Meanwhile, rib lovers will be lining up at Bytown Bayou Louisiana Smokehouse, where Richard Hash will be dishing up Louisiana-style smoked barbecue from his gourmet truck on the edge of Hintonburg (Spadina between Somerset and Wellington, to be exact). Hash has been plying his trade out of Embrun for the past two years, honing his craft before jumping into the Ottawa scene. A pulled-pork po’boy with a side of Louisiana potato salad or Southern slaw would hit the spot right about now. Kickstarting Growth The new year saw a number of local food entrepreneurs jumping into the crowd-funding arena to grow their businesses. Launched 18 months ago, Chefx is a partnership between Jeff Heaton and a who’s who of chefs around town. The 100-plus local subscribers to Chefx pay a set fee to ensure that Heaton’s staff shows up at their doors each week with chef-tested recipes and a boxful of ingredients. The service allows keen home chefs to create the dishes they drool over at the likes of Les Fougères and Whalesbone while avoiding the aggravation of running all over town sourcing ingredients. In January, Heaton raised $4,765 through Kickstarter to pilot a new packaging and delivery model along the Quebec City–Windsor corridor. (Chefx is testing biodegradable insulated liners and boxes that will allow them to ship by overnight courier.) They’re also planning a spring launch for their “52 Weeks of Ontario” project, which will see Chefx feature a different seasonal food or Ontario artisanal product each week for a year. Busy times, indeed. Moving in the opposite direction, farmer Madeleine Maltby went hyper local, raising just over $1,000 to kickstart Britannia Backyard Edibles, a plan to grow organic vegetables in five Britannia Village backyards this summer to be harvested and distributed to a dozen families through a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program within the community. “I believe there is a real niche for this ‘extreme’ local food movement,” says Maltby. “I want the business to be about bringing a community together around nutritious and sustainably grown food.” Though she is starting small, if all goes well this season, Maltby plans to expand into other communities in the west end. If you’re not lucky enough to live in Britannia, you can taste Maltby’s produce via Top Shelf Preserves, which uses her Tweed-grown garlic in some of its pickled products, and at Bread By Us, which incorporates Maltby’s greens into some of their specialty sandwiches.
Quick Bites • Move over, craft beer and small-batch soft drinks. The newest kids on the block are Joël Beaupré and Mathieu Guillemette, the two Gatineau guys behind Jack’s Tonique artisanal tonic water concentrate. Pick it up at local high-end food stores around town, and mix it with North of 7 gin for an all-Ottawa G&T. • Congrats to Absinthe’s Patrick Garland, who competed in the 2015 Canadian Culinary Championships in Kelowna, British Columbia, rubbing shoulders with top chefs from across the country. Seems like a good time to revisit this 12-year-old Ottawa mainstay and see what’s cooking. • The venerable Caribbean Flavours has risen once again, this time at York and Nelson in former Caribbean takeout restaurant Pixy’s Place. Frederick White has reworked the name slightly — it’s now known as Flavours of the Caribbean — and will focus on takeout and catering small events, though he is also offering delivery and has a small restaurant space. “Sandy Hill is an up-and-coming community, and we are looking to add a positive vibe to the area,” says White. Roti run! • Speaking of businesses of long standing, Château Lafayette announced in February that it was taking back 42 York St. After a decade sharing digs with the Laff, the unlamented Quiznos was closed in the winter, allowing the Laff to re-expand the bar area. • Appreciators of South Indian cuisine have a new option with the opening a few months ago of Kochin Kitchen in the old Spiga location on Dalhousie. The chef, Anil Oorkolil, comes from the very popular South Indian restaurant Coconut Lagoon on St. Laurent. • Juniper fans were taken by surprise last November when the Westboro eatery closed without warning. But they’ll be happy to hear that chef Norm Aitken has resurfaced in the ByWard Market at the newly rebranded Empire (formerly the Empire Grill).