ottawa foodies

My sister was in town from Vancouver recently and was telling me about this new trend in vancouver where people (chefs) open underground "restaurants" either as a one-off or ongoing thing in their own home. Has anyone heard about this? Is it just a Vancouver thing? Any interesting stories? Please share ...

Mellos on Dalhousie has had some pop up type evenings, but I haven't participated in anything.

Cobra Ottawa did this for a while, haven't heard about it recently (which may just mean it's further underground than it used to be). The last one I heard about turned out to be a bit of a disaster unfortunately.

Matt Carmichael did a pop up for a few weeks in summer 2012 at Mellos and it was so successful that the owners made it permanent by bringing in Michael Frank to build an amazing dinner service separate from their day menu. They recently unified things and now have an all day menu done by Michael (which means you can get his burger and fries for lunch now!)

It's been going on in the States for several years. I've heard of them in many major US cities

Try Ahora, its about as underground as it gets.

I'd say the basement of Union 613 is further underground than Ahora.

The Ottawa popup scene seems to come and go. Looks like a quiet period just now.