This week, I was taken to a surprise dinner and
asked to wear something nice. When it comes to places that call for 'something nice', I thought I had seen it all in Ottawa, but with this
particular place receiving reviews such as "the most buzzed about restaurant in Ottawa" and "the wildest dining experience in town", I've clearly been missing out. They say you should be wary of entering an unmarked restaurant
(do they say that?), but as we approached our mysteriously dismal
dinner venue, I thought
My feet are strapped into six inch towers of torture and I double conditioned my hair – I am not going back.
Sleek, delicate grates covered the windows of the little grey house,
as the “540” affixed to the door seemed to suggest that yes, we have
arrived at the right location, and did we have a spare mouth gag, by any
chance? My date, having noticed the sprinkling
of hesitation on my face, nervously joked that he was bringing me to a
50 Shades of Grey party. Meanwhile, my mind raced through my inevitable
expectations: were we walking into that infamous scene from Eyes Wide
Shut? A speak-easy? Or perhaps Fight Club?
Wrong on all counts. Instead, we walked into Atelier Restaurant: “A tasting menu restaurant in Ottawa serving 'New Canadian' food based on hypermodern culinary technique and technology.”
Here is a picture of the outside I literally got from Google maps. You tell
me you wouldn’t be picturing Nicole Kidman in a cult robe.
We were seated into a very cozy dining spot, with
soft, elegant chairs and a calm, pastel ambiance peppered with
beautifully framed doodles, suggesting the chef/owner’s pride in his
children or perhaps the beginnings of a side career in
visual art. A very endearing detail.
Our waiter was impeccably polite, professional, and
probably an elephant, because I don’t know how a human being can
remember fifty details about each of the twelve (!!!) dishes we were
served. (On that note, I’ll apologize in advance for
the fact that I cannot describe the dishes aside from their main
components, because I just don’t remember everything that went into
them.) My date, being extremely classy, decided that we should opt for a
wine pairing with our dinner, and I, being a fan of
booze, agreed. The Sommelier (Steve Robinson, who was not
coincidentally named ‘Best Sommelier in Ontario’ in 2014) poured our
whites, reds, and rosés with every meal, detailing his particular
choices in that adorable way someone speaks when they’re trying
to contain their passion in a box with an ill-fitting lid.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if they served oysters?” my
dining companion joked again, knowing my disdain for things that taste
like the lake squeezed its armpit into a shell. Enter our first dish of
course (is everyone familiar with how my life
works, by now?), called ‘Aw Shucks!’ : Oysters with jelly, topped with
horseradish foam.
I’m going to expand my horizons and be open to new possibilities! I
thought, as I let one slither reluctantly into my mouth. Nope. Not
today. Not ever. That’s just me though, I don’t like oysters. They sure
did look lovely, though..
The next dish was called ‘You’re Singing Out of Tuna’ and was a very
tasty tuna tartare adorned with hints of crispy chicken skin, among
other intricate details.
Next came the ‘Shrimp Ring’, or the SOIHFDOIHF WJVPOD as I heard it. A
dehydrated turnip covered a bed of something at meaty but not very loud
in taste. “I think this might be shrimp,” I observed. “Is there shrimp
in this?” I asked the
waiter, with the wonder of a culinary explorateur. “In the shrimp ring?
Yes.” He answered. Ah so.
The next dish was particularly important to me because it marked the
beginning of a very special bond between us and our waiter. He called
it ‘Strawberry Fields for Now’ and described it as a berry soufflé
(served atop a porcelain sphere)
and suggested that we eat it in one bite because “…at the end, it pops
in your mouth.” At that, my raging possession by the That’s What She
Said spirit took hold, as the words projectiled out of my mouth before I
could stop them. To that, he stopped mid well-rehearsed
sentence, laughed, and said “I’m not supposed to say that but.YES!”
As we ate this refreshing bite-sized delicacy, I noticed the waiter
coyly peeking from around the corner. He was looking at our dishes, just
waiting to surprise us with what we had already guessed was coming
next, hidden inside the porcelain
sphere. "If you lift the top, you will find…” one of my favourite
dishes: An aloe vera mousse ball sitting in a berry sauce.
Hey, have you ever eaten baby octopus and wondered why it was just soooo
boring? Okay, then you must’ve tried adding a strip of Agar, a splash
of squid ink, and oh, I don’t know, maybe some dehydrated Chorizo to it,
as they did in this
next dish, the ‘Squidgee Kid’ . Wow.
Next came the ‘Abraham Lingcod’ which was a perfectly seared piece of
fish full of flavour and colorfully complimented by flavors I can no
longer identify. If you look closely, I think that’s a tomato. Again,
I’d like to reiterate that
my failure in remembering the dish components is strictly because there
were just so many (and…alright, so much wine too..)
Then, the waiter brought out a black vertical cylinder, on which was
perched a steel spoon, to which a leaf was attached with a metal clip.
The highlight of the meal (the ‘Belly Up’): a cube of pork belly,
balanced precariously in a little
pool of cream sauce. I’ll say the words you shouldn’t say when
describing food, because I just don’t care because this could not be
truer: it was amazing.
One dish that I found particularly memorable was the ‘Meat and
Potatoes’: a surprisingly hearty portion of beef prepared with the
sous-vide method. The result was a very savoury, juicy piece of
well-brined perfection. Salty, tangy, and
sharp, it was (of course) thoughtfully contrasted by err…something
green, and a tiny potato.
The waiter called this next dish ‘Pasta La Vista, Baby!’, and while it’s
a fact that the dish was flavorful like all of the others, it’s also a
fact that I requested that the waiter re-describe its entirety with an
Arnold Schwarzenegger
accent. Fact #3 is that the waiter said he didn’t think he could do it.
Fact #4 is that I told him to try anyway. Fact #5: he said he would
practice it and come back later. Fact #6 the rest of the meals were
presented to us in an Arnie accent.
Get to da next one!
The following dish (the ‘Squabble’) had, as can be seen, roasted
vegetables, a very flattering cream sauce balance, and something I found
peculiarly soft yet squishy, not quite game-y, not quite poultry-ish,
with a slight bitterness overshadowed
by this sort of flat aftertaste. It had a rounded, voluptuous edge, but
smoothly obeyed the knife blade when it was cut, the way an egg would.
“Excuse me sir, is this sack?” I asked our waiter. “Pardon?” he asked.
“Am I eating a testicle?” Like the professional
that he was, he answered, without flinching: “That is squab.” “What is
squab?” I asked, adjusting my monocle. “It is essentially a pigeon,” he
explained. “So street bird. I am eating street bird,” I confirmed. He
laughed and nodded. Then, before walking away,
he leaned in and added, “Iiiiiiz naht a peeeegeon”.
Wanna know what happens at the end, when you go to a restaurant that
utilizes hypermodern culinary technique? You get three desserts, one of
which is a helium sugar balloon (called the ‘Dino Egg’) that is handed
to you on a fruit candy
string. We were told to put our lips on the sugar coating and suck the
helium out, which, let’s face it, never gets old. Diners of all ages
were laughing as we turned into chipmunks, then into big messy babies
with sugar balloon remnants covering our faces.
Brilliant.
The second dessert, called the ‘Rhubarbara Walters’ (I cannot get enough
of these names), was a frozen orb of passion fruit sorbet, nestled
atop a spongecake crumble, with berries, edible flower petals, and some
sort of dehydrated magic bowing at the feet of its elegance. The tropical-fruity shell was very thin and
melted almost immediately, the flavours fusing perfectly with their dry,
semi-sweet counterparts.
Our last dish and the third dessert, which I assume was a continuation
of ‘Rhubarbara Walters’ was comprised of what looked like a creamy snake
topped with little meringues and dehydrated sugary… matter. Bits of
jelly rested along its curvy
spine, and once again, it had a light and fruity tone that didn’t make
you feel like you’ve just eaten the conclusion to twelve dishes, which I
really did not mind.
As a side note, I’m not a wine connoisseur but you
know how people who really want to convince you that they know about
wine will tell you that they’re ‘picking up on’ ‘notes’ of ‘plum,
Autumn, a sneeze, and a hint of Sunday
morning’ and
you’re like “yeah me too” but really you’re not even sure what colour
the wine is? Well, for the first time in my life, I observed this lovely
sweet passionfruit-like smell in this one particular Riesling, and was
absolutely floored by its taste which was
also very fruity, very rounded, not too sweet, and just delicious. I
just felt like I got it, guys. That wine was a
2012 Studert-Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese from Mosel, Germany, and if you ever find it, I would suggest you give it a try.
The entire dining experience lasted almost four
hours, and truly, I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun
eating food. Each dish enticed the diner to experience it like a little
story, and each triggered an entirely unique sensation,
whether by virtue of the crackling chorizo, the waiters’ and
sommelier’s seamless dedication to providing incredible service, or the
mystique of the elusive street bird. Highly, highly recommended.
Atelier is located at 540 Rochester Street. Cult robe optional.
