13 top restaurants join new Ottawa Citizen tasting event in support of food bank

Peter Hum

Thu, July 24, 2025 at 11:00 a.m.

Editor’s note: Ottawa Citizen Best Restaurants sold out as of July 27! Thank you to everyone who secured a ticket.

As much as I’ve tried for more than a dozen years to document objectively the highs and lows and ups and downs of Ottawa’s restaurants, by now I’m also an advocate for the city’s best eateries and shops, which stand out thanks to the deliciousness and distinctiveness of their work. If you email me asking for a recommendation, I’ll write you back. (Although to the frequently asked query, “What’s the best restaurant in the city?” I usually respond, “It depends on what you like.”)

For more than a few years, I’ve contributed my ballot to the compilers of the annual Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants list, and Ottawa eateries always rank among my top 10, no matter how well I’ve eaten in Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver. While Michelin Guide inspectors don’t visit Ottawa as they do those three Canadian metropolises, I’ve chimed in and written about the local restaurants that I think are Michelin-worthy.

All that to say, celebrating eating well in Ottawa is part of my job. Given that, I’m glad that the Ottawa Citizen is putting its corporate weight behind an event this fall with the same goal: to fete some of the national capital region’s top chefs and restaurants, as well as a culinary scene that I think is underestimated in the country.

After bolstering our local food and drink coverage to help you find the best ice cream shops, cocktail bars, pizzerias, most iconic Ottawa dishes and more, the newspaper’s logical next step is to bring together a baker’s dozen of leading restaurant and food shop chefs for a celebratory evening.

Restaurant E18hteen

18 York St.; restaurant18.com

When I first wrote about Dave Godsoe in 2013, he was the chef barely in his early 20s who ran the kitchen at a very promising restaurant called Indulge Kitchen and Cocktails in Riverside South. Just a few years later, in 2016, the Algonquin College culinary program grad became the latest in a line of acclaimed chefs to take the helm at Restaurant E18hteen in the ByWard Market. Nine years later, Godsoe is a sextuple threat, overseeing the kitchens and beverage programs at E18hteen, Social Restaurant and Lounge, Sidedoor, the Clarendon Tavern and the Hyde, which are clustered in the Market, as well as at Maison Charron in Jacques Cartier Park.

E18hteen, which opened in 2001 in a rugged and lovely stone building as old as Canada, is the most deluxe of the eateries in what’s now called the E18hteen Hospitality Group, whose owners have entrusted so much to Godsoe. At E18hteen, fine dining fare leans into traditional French cuisine with Canadian influences, and its selection of steaks and chops is considerable.

1 Elgin

1 Elgin St., inside the National Arts Centre; nac-cna.ca/en/1elgin

Best known for its pre-show dinners, attractive canal-side patio and take-home holiday feasts, the National Arts Centre’s restaurant 1 Elgin has also commendably strutted its stuff at past Ottawa culinary events such as A Taste For Hope, among others. NAC executive chef Kenton Leier usually shares the limelight at the NAC’s Chef’s Table nights with resident chefs who come from across the country to have their profiles raised nationally.

At the Citizen’s 2025 Best Restaurants event, he’ll be in the limelight by himself, or at least, with members of the NAC team. If you attend A Taste of the Capital and haven’t done so already, you can congratulate Leier for his recovery following his 2022 brush with death after dealing with a workplace emergency.

Aiana

50 O’Connor St., aiana.ca

Aiana, the posh restaurant in the Sun Life Financial Centre, celebrates its fifth anniversary on Aug. 7, marking its splashy entry on Ottawa’s restaurant scene despite the distress and uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, chef Raghav Chaudhary has ambitiously asserted himself with lunch and dinner menus (both à la carte and tasting) that nod to fine Canadian ingredients and rigorous technique.

Chaudhary, a Canadian who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and has worked in acclaimed restaurants in Sweden and San Francisco, represented Ottawa at the 2024 Canadian Culinary Championship. Chaudhary, who also happens to have the name of his restaurant tattooed on his forearm, is to release his first cookbook, entitled Gather, Savor, Share, this fall.

Arlo Wine & Restaurant

340 Somerset St. W., restaurantarlo.com

Opened during the first pandemic summer in 2020, Arlo Wine and Restaurant defied the headwinds by offering restaurant-goers a trifecta of attractions. Chef and co-owner Jamie Stunt, who won silver at the 2013 Canadian Culinary Championship, makes exemplary, flavour-packed food that’s as tasty as it is unfussy — think spiced duck brochettes with fries or a porcini-dusted ribeye steak for two.

Sommelier and co-owner Alex McMahon, who a decade ago interned at the world-class restaurant Noma in Copenhagen before overseeing the wine programs at Bar Laurel and then Riviera, offers beguiling natural and low-intervention wines. He also demystifies them for customers in the friendliest, most unassuming way. The ambience in Arlo’s charming, woody Centretown building is just as casual, with servers in t-shirts and a back patio in summer that’s positively idyllic. Steadily rising in the estimation of the annual Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants list, this year Arlo was ranked 49th.

Coconut Lagoon

853 St. Laurent Blvd., coconutlagoon.ca

Ottawa chef Joe Thottungal is a shining example of a new-Canadian success story. Born, raised and trained as a chef in India, he worked in Mumbai, Saudi Arabia, Toronto, and Windsor before coming to Ottawa in 2002. While the city had lots of Indian restaurants at the time, they served Northern Indian fare while Thottungal came from Kerala on India’s southwest coast.

In 2004, he opened Coconut Lagoon in a former St. Laurent Boulevard sports bar to champion the food of tropical regions, which is rich with vibrant flavours and the pleasures of coconut milk, curry leaves, ginger, garlic, and well-deployed spices. After persevering through some tough early days, the restaurant became a hit. Thottungal then racked up achievement after achievement, from representing Ottawa at the 2017 Canadian Culinary Championship, where he took home silver, to writing two award-winning cookbooks, to opening a second restaurant, Thali, in downtown Ottawa.

Thottungal is as well-known in Ottawa for his philanthropy and community-building as he is for his food. For many years, he has supported local community organizations including Carefor, the Élisabeth Bruyère Hospital and the Ottawa Snowsuit Fund. He regularly donates food to the Shepherds of Good Hope soup kitchen, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, when his restaurants were closed, he rallied local chefs to help feed those hardest hit by the pandemic. No wonder Thottungal in 2020 received the Order of Ottawa and was chosen as an Ottawa Citizen newsmaker of the year.

Peter Hum’s November 2022 review of Coconut Lagoon.

Full Article here