Envious of other cities with their city-wide restaurant promotions, such as New York’s Restaurant Week or Toronto’s Summerlicious? A new one starts in Ottawa this week, but with a unique local flavour.
Savour Ottawa Tables, which started July 15 and runs until Aug. 30, features specially priced table d’hôte menus at some spots, and special dishes at others, all built around ingredients grown in and around Ottawa.
“Ottawa has some of the finest restaurants in the country,” says Trevor Haché, a co-ordinator for Savour Ottawa, a group that has about 100 farms as members and which also certifies restaurants and food stores as offering a significant proportion of local ingredients. “Our hope is that people will be able to have a high-quality meal that maybe they wouldn’t always be able to afford.”
So far, five restaurants and two take-home food businesses have signed on; Haché expects others to join in the coming weeks. Here’s a taste:
Absinthe, 1208 Wellington St. West: A $50 three-course Savour Ottawa Tables table d’hôte menu will be offered July 16 to Aug. 30 featuring such local products as Mariposa duck, Beking’s eggs and Bushgarden Farmstead Cheese. This week’s menu, for example, features an Alsatian Onion Tart with Arugula; Duck with Cauliflower Purée, Scapes and Sea Buckthorn Gastrique; and Mariposa Farm’s Raspberry Panna Cotta, Raspberry Chambord Sorbet and a Vanilla Tuile for dessert.
Courtyard Restaurant, 21 George St.: A $39 three-course table d’hôte menu, available now until the end of August, includes such dishes as Mariposa Farms Duck Leg Confit or Ricotta and Lemon Gnocchi with Juniper Farm Kale, Le Coprin Mushrooms, Peas and Brown Butter, and, for dessert, Shortcake with Acorn Creek Strawberries.
The Albion Rooms in the Novotel Hotel: A $45 three-course table d’hôte menu, to be offered from Aug. 10 to 29, includes Acorn Creek Melons and Basil, Trillium Meadows Wild Boar Ribs with Dominion City IPA Barbecue Glaze and Heavenly Honey Buckwheat Honey Crème Brûlée with Honey Comb and Macerated Acorn Creek Berries.
Fairmont Le Château Laurier: Wilfrid’s dining room is offering a $68 three-course table d’hôte until the end of the summer that includes a kale salad, flank steak or grilled trout, and apple tarte tatin with fresh strawberry ice cream, made with ingredients from Le Coprin, Juniper Farm, Rochon Garden, Bryson Farm, Butterfly Sky and Fitzroy Beef.
NAC Le Café: The canal-side terrace is highlighting local dishes on its menu with the Savour Ottawa logo. Special dishes include Mushroom & Asparagus Pizza, $18, made with Juniper farm’s tomatoes and roasted garlic, and Canada’s National Burger, made with local beef and housemade pickles, also $18.
Red Apron: Each Thursday from July 16 to Aug. 27, Red Apron’s Thursday $39 meal-for-two menu will feature Savour Ottawa products, from Ferme aux Saveurs des Monts Roast Chicken and Upper Canada Cranberry Curd Tarts on July 30, to lasagna made with Le Coprin mushrooms and local kale and Summer Berry Yogurt Parfaits on Aug. 27.
Thyme & Again: The take-home food shop will offer a special Savour Ottawa dinner menu in August, including Seasonal Greens with Rochon Gardens’ Berries and Kricklewood Farm Sunflower Oil Dressing, weekly steak specials made with O’Brien Farms beef, and seasonal vegetables. Special July desserts feature local strawberries; in August it’s a mini cheesecake made with Rochon wild blueberries and local goat cheese.
Savour Ottawa will hold its fifth annual Harvest Table event Aug. 30, for the first in the renovated Horticulture Building at Lansdowne Park.
Harvest Table: The promotion will culminate Sunday, Aug. 30, with Savour Ottawa’s fifth annual Harvest Table, to be held in the Horticulture Building at Lansdowne for the first time.
The event features a luncheon feast for about 200 served family-style and cooked up by area chefs who collaborate with local farmers. New farms this year include Against the Grains, which produces heritage grains and even purple corn flour, near Winchester; The Beet Box, a market garden started last year in L’Ange-Gardien, Que.; Moonlight Crofters, a “slow food” organic farm near Douglas; and Ferme et Forêt, an organic and wild foods farm near Wakefield.
Tickets to the Harvest Table are $75 ($90 for “Cream of the Crop” tickets, which include a market tour, appetizers and cocktails) and sell out in advance each year.
Get more information, book dinner reservations or buy tickets for the Harvest Table at through savourottawa.ca.
