ottawa foodies

Anne DesBrisay, in her latest review (www.capitaldining.ca), offered this gem of an observation:

"The Ottawa restaurant scene is many scenes, of course, and this restaurant belongs to a "scene" that has a remarkable and puzzling endurance. I refer to Italian-ish restaurants. They arrived in the 1980s and their bill of fare really hasn't changed much in decades. They almost always have Sambucca [sic] shrimp, for instance, and bruschetta, regardless of season, deep-fried, battered calamari and a goat cheese and grilled vegetable salad. They do dishes they call risotto (which in this case turns out to be mushy rice) and gnocchi (which taste like they come from a bag) and you can always, for a price, add grilled chicken or tiger shrimp to any pasta dish."

Most of these Italian-ish restaraunts are outside of Preston Street, but even in Little Italy the quality is hit and miss. I have yet to find an Italian restaurant that does not have disappointing menu items.

So what's up? Why the large array of substandard pseudo-Italian food offerings in our city? Is it just an unfortunate trend from the 80s that has managed to endure until today?

i have to agree with anne. i dread the dinner invite out with friends who love italian. i've eaten my way through italy, i've eaten simple italian food at friend's home (who use to own restuarant on preston), but i haven't eaten anything like that at an restaurants in ottawa. i'm not an upscale diner, so my range of restaurants may be somewhat limited. i've eat at most of the italian places on preston and some are really fine, really, but there aren't any that i want to go to again and again.

I agree with HFF. I also love Italian food, however I find that instead of the rustic and simple meal featuring fresh ingredients - the core of Italian food. A great deal of 'Italian' restaurants in Ottawa has instead lost these roots and opted to use flashy out of season ingredients in overly complicated and often poorly executed dishes.

Yan, I pretty much reached the same conclusion, but hadn't hit the "Post" button yet: It may simply be that the best Italian food is simple fare, highly reliant on the freshest ingredients. And those ingredients are not readily available in Ottawa all year long.

I do know that's why I have to visit Portugal to get excellent Portuguese food.

Yeah, when I was writing about the Foodie Curse and The Grand Pizzeria last Sunday, this is what I meant. I know that Italian food at restaurants in Ottawa is never as good as the stuff that I can make at home. Italian food is best when it's simple and seasonal, and that (as Yan mentioned) is a point at which restaurants in Ottawa fail.

I agree with everyone to a point, there are simply too many Italian style restaurants in Ottawa (Toronto has the same problem). Don't get me wrong I love a good Veal dish or pasta but pasta to me is a side dish not a main course (alfredo, abbriatta etc etc).

The biggest problem with Italian restaurants here is that they are trying to please too many people & lose their individuality & their authenticity.

I worked for an Italian restaurant for years, good decent food, well priced but we had (& is quite common in Italian Rest) 72 main course items, patrons tend to get lost in a menu that large & eventually order the old standbys, Spaghetti & Meat balls, Canneloni, Manicotti, Fettucini Alfredo, Veal or Chicken Parm. It's easy to get bored of the same old thing.

I would suggest that when you dine Italian, try something different, maybe you'll find a hidden jem.

My 3 favorite Italian restaurants are La porto a casa in barrhaven Pollo Boscialla), Allegro on Preston (It's all about the Bread) or Capone's on Carling (Steak Siciliana with a side of the best Fett alfredo in Ottawa)

Just my 2 cents

I agree that Italian cuisine is one that oftentimes just hasn't been translated all that well to NAmerica, I think it is a host of factors. Most importantly, Italy is really regional and a bit chauvinistic when it comes to local cuisine; in other words, each region has a very distinct approach to the ingredients readily available, and inhabitants of one area famously deride the approach taken in neighbouring regions.

This sense of pride creates a host of vibrant and disparate regional cuisines. Therefore, I think that “Italian” cuisine in our NAmerican sense is a woefully overbroad approach that ends up resulting in a mediocre translation of everything rather than a faithful rendition of say, Sardinian, Sicilian or Tuscan food.

It amazes me that I have never seen (in Canadian restaurants) a bowl of pasta with sardines, proper puttanesca, a real panzenella or ribbolita, bolognese with chicken livers, or octopus and white bean salad and that is just a list of personal favourites off the top of my head. Even a simple caprese salad in August that hasn't been "reinterpreted" by the chef would be pleasant.

These aren’t exactly difficult, expensive or fancy dishes to prepare, and I think that reasonably authentic versions could be produced using fresh Ontario and Quebec ingredients. I guess a lot of Canadians have gotten used to veal milano-style, bruschetta in January, and basil pesto on everything and I guess that is what keeps restos paying their rent!

I know that it's gotten some negative reviews, but I really like Napo for simple, seasonal Italian. My hubby and I generally don't go to Italian restaurants for many of the reasons listed above.