I have discovered a serious flaw in my plans for the Ottawa Citizen’s Best Restaurants event on Oct. 19.
I’m working it.
That didn’t seem like a problem when I agreed to spend the evening at the National Arts Centre making cocktails for Artist in Residence Distillery. After all, I like — no, love — making cocktails. And, as many of my friends will tell you, I also enjoy giving them away. So this should be my happy place , right?
And yet.
A serious complication arose earlier this week: I was sent the menus from the two dozen restaurants and drink providers who are taking part. If I were to sum up their collective offerings in three family-friendly words, they would be, “Oh, my gosh.”
Let’s start with the host kitchen: the NAC’s 1 Elgin .
Their Chef Kenton Leier will be serving a Northern Forest Duo, consisting of cedar-cured venison with pickled blueberry, juniper crème fraîche and crispy rye tuile, as well as a smoked trout croquette with pickled dill cucumber, honey-roasted butternut mustard and micro chervil.
Am I seriously expected to remain at my station, industriously paring and twisting strips of lemon peel for drink garnishes while that’s happening just a couple of tables away?
(Admittedly, I may have addressed this particular issue by changing the garnish of my Late Edition cocktail — a Mantha rye-based concoction with homemade shagbark hickory syrup that I swear tastes just like a cozy night at the cottage — by switching from lemon peel to dehydrated lemon wheels. They take a lot longer to prepare but can be done in advance — I’m actually busy making some as I write this, and will probably still be making them by the time you read it.)
If it were only 1 Elgin’s menu that I had to contend with, then perhaps that would be enough. But the smorgasbord extends as far as the myopic eye can see, and then some.
Consider, for example, chef Joe Thottungal’s dishes from Coconut Lagoon . One is a Malabar-style duck biryani with pomegranate raita, quail egg, pappadum and cilantro sprouts. He’s providing a vegan option, too: mushroom masala with tomato chutney, sev, curry leaf oil and cilantro sprouts.
An aside: due to some combination of my lack of culinary worldliness and my no-longer-early-onset forgetfulness, I had to look up sev — it’s a crunchy, deep-fried South Asian snack made from chickpea flour paste.
If some of these foodie ingredients are unfamiliar to you too, fear not, for the chefs for each restaurant will be on hand to answer any questions you might have. You can safely leave your copy of Larousse Gastronomique at home, freeing up your hands to feed yourself some of Perch’s Trillium Meadows red deer tartare with crispy seaweed, sea truffle and sumac or Bar Lupulus’s koji-aged beef tartare with fried salmon fish skin “canolli,” smoked wagyu fat mayo, 36-month-old Comté cheese, fermented habanada pepper, dried fig leaf salt and preserved allium.
I have been eating food for more than 60 years, and apparently have barely scratched the surface. I feel like I’m entering some culinary version of Narnia through a Michelin-star wardrobe.
At this point, my strategy for the night is becoming clear.
Do not eat lunch.
And I may skip breakfast, too.
Linton pasture pork terrine with crabapple mostarda from La Petite Primerose . Vitello tonnato from North & Navy . Gluten-free chicken nugget from Kozhi , with curry-leaf crème fraîche and trout roe. Tuktu Catering is serving arctic char ceviche on corn chips.
If ever I find myself on death row, I want my last meal to be this event’s entire menu. And believe it or not, there’s more.
Arlo is serving beef tataki and barbecue eel with chili, aioli and crispy sweet potato, and North Market , from Almonte, is bringing savoury éclairs featuring local squash, tomato, marigold and herbs from its garden.
Rangoon , one of this year’s “hidden gem” restaurants, will have green tea leaf salad and Shan chicken noodles. The other hidden gem, Around the Block Butcher, is serving a bite-sized Montreal-style smoked-meat sandwich on rye crostini, with mustard and pickle — ingredients I’m entirely familiar with.
There is, I should add, more expected of you at this year’s event than simply eating.
Everyone who attends will be given a pen, lanyard and a scorecard listing the restaurants and chefs, with room to jot down tasting notes and give each dish a score.
The idea, according to Citizen Editor-in-Chief Nicole Feriancek , is to give everyone a little taste of what it’s like to eat with Citizen restaurant critic Peter Hum (who, incidentally, will be there, making the exercise more than just theoretical).
As Nicole puts it, dining with a restaurant critic forces you to slow down and appreciate food in a new way.
“You eat differently because you’re trying to think carefully about presentation, about texture, about how it tastes. You start saying things like ‘mouthfeel.’”
Nicole says what surprised her most about eating for a review, is that Peter doesn’t expect his dining companions to be experts. Even when eating something completely unfamiliar, “he’s still interested in my take, in how I’m experiencing it.”
And that is exactly why the Citizen is looking to event-goers for their tastebud takes, to help crown the best dishes of Ottawa Citizen Best Restaurants 2026. At the bottom of the aforementioned scorecard is a perforated ballot where guests can name their favourite dish — and favourite beverage — of the night. We’ll tally the votes and publish the audience choice the following day online.
I hope I haven’t made that part sound like work. It’s intended to be fun — sort of like a grown-up version of the Children’s Museum at the Canadian Museum of History, where kids get mini passports stamped at various stations. There, it’s the pyramids and Pakistani bus. Here, it’s duck biryani and unoaked Chardonnay.
And we haven’t even got to the desserts yet, including pastries from Elina Patisserie and Pasticceria Gelateria, and from Moo Shu Ice Cream and Kitchen, Bay Leaf & Concord Grape, Poire Belle-Hélène and Crisp Apple Crisp ice cream delights.
So let me apologize in advance. If you come looking for me at the Artist in Residence Distillery bar and discover an abandoned cocktail shaker and a handwritten sign saying “BACK IN FIVE MINUTES,” there’s a good chance I’m just a few steps away, developing an informed opinion about sea buckthorn creamsicle ice cream or smoked trout croquettes.
Don’t worry, though. There will still be plenty to drink.
Beyond the Pale Brewing Co. will be pouring local brews, while three wineries — Casa Dea Estates Winery, Reif Estate and Sandbanks Vineyard — will help paint the evening red, white and rosé.
Meanwhile, Distillerie du Square, in Chelsea, will be serving a couple of mocktails, including a Spruce Berry made with raspberry cordial and spruce and hibiscus syrups (note to self: get some of their spruce syrup!).
Ananda Elixirs is teaming up with Harvest Valley Edible Flowers for mocktails of their own, as is The Booj from Ahh!!! Coffee. I don’t know what each is making, but I regularly go to Ahh!!! and simply ask them to make me something, and that “system” has never disappointed.
And if your cup of tea is actually a cup of Joe, The Artery Community Coffee Roaster is serving espresso, drip and flat whites.
In other words, you’ll be fine.
I, on the other hand, may be in trouble.
But you know that old expression: better to ask for forgiveness than miss out on cedar-cured venison.
Editor’s note: Tickets for the Ottawa Citizen’s favourite event of the year are on sale now — snag yours before they are gone! I’ve love to see you there, celebrating Ottawa’s truly remarkable culinary community. — Nicole Feriancek, editor-in-chief
