Ottawa Tonite.com : Section Title
- The restaurant needs to be a fine dining establishment.
- The restaurant needs to be on the tip of your tongue when your current boss, former mentor, hero, and father-in-law says he’s coming to Ottawa and wants you to recommend a place to go with the “missus” for their 40th wedding anniversary.
- Domus Café: 87 Murray Street – (613)241-6007
- Beckta Dining and Wine: 226 Nepean Street – (613)238-7063
- Restaurant E18teen: 18 York Street – (613)244-1188
- Navarra Restaurant: 93 Murray Street – (613)241-5500
- Le Baccara: 1, boulevard du Casino – (819)772-6210
- The Wellington Gastropub: 1325 Wellington Street – (613)729-1315
- Allium: 87 Holland Avenue – (613)792-1313
- The Urban Pear: 151 Second Avenue – (613)569-9305
- Benitz Bistro: 327 Somerset Street West – (613)567-8100
- Juniper Kitchen and Wine Bar: 1293 Wellington Street West – (613)728-0220
Posts Tagged ‘food’
Nancy’s Wine Time #3 – Food and Wine Show
Nancy attended the Ottawa Wine and Food Show for Ottawa Tonight and put together this report on the good, the not-so-good and a couple of wine recommendations that are available at the Ontario LCBO.
And here’s the recipe from Heritage Brewing for those amazing Heritage Braised Lamb Shanks!
What’s in a list? Controversy surrounding Chris Knight’s Top 10 for 2009
It seems that this year’s edition of the Ottawa Magazine that contains Chris Knight’s Top 10 list of “Best Restaurants” has received a sneak preview. For those of you in the know, the November issue of the local magazine, whose articles center on Ottawa, our businesses, and our communities, has included a best restaurant list since 2006. With the October edition still on newsstands, many restaurants seem to have received early copies of the November edition. Subscribers to the Ottawa Citizen, a local newspaper, received copies bundled with their Sunday edition last week. Judging from Tweets from several chefs and restaurateurs on Twitter, some restaurants are happy with the list. Others, less than happy. A controversy, however, has emerged, even with the edition not generally available to Ottawa residents.
This being its fourth incarnation, Knight, a television producer of several popular shows on Food Network Canada, was again asked to put together a list of fine dining restaurants for Ottawa. It is essentially his determination of the best and brightest in the local restaurant scene. Though, his past lists regularly included restaurants in the surrounding national capital region, such as several situated just across the river in Gatineau, Quebec. So how does a restaurant make it onto the list?
In his first list, Knight explained rather artfully the criteria by which he chooses restaurants:
In following years, he was much more specific:
…three things go into making for an excellent night out. The first and most obvious (you’d think) is the food…The service is a close second…The third thing that goes into a great dinner out is the buzz. By this we mean the vibe you get when you first walk into the room.
Source: November 2007 Edition of the Ottawa Magazine
…if I had to assign a number value, it would be as follows: Food – 50 [percent], Service – 30 [percent], Ambiance/Buzz – 20 [percent].
Source: November 2008 Edition of the Ottawa Magazine.
Here is Knight’s 2009 list (care of the online community at OttawaFoodies.com):
Accordingly, the top fine dining destination in Ottawa is Chef/Owner John Taylor’s Domus. All in all, the list seems like a good sampling of higher end restaurants in the National Capital Region. The Food Editor of the Ottawa Citizen, Ron Eade, disagrees.
@RonEade (Oct 25, 06:16 PM)
D’ya see how many, many repeats in Top 10 list? 8 repeats by my count f’m lst yr. That’s 8 fr 10 Yawn. Move on. Boring.
@RonEade (Oct 25, 06:17 PM)
And, many are his personal friends. In fact, Blackie is catering his wedding. O my.
@RonEade (Oct 25, 10:19 PM)
Ott. mag Top 10 list is v-e-r-y tired, old hat, and old school. Grow up, move on.
According to him, Knight and the Ottawa Magazine may be playing favourites. Eight of the given 10 restaurants are the same as last year. Eade went on to oppose the list on both Twitter and the online forum at OttawaFoodies.com.
