Juniper has long been one of our favourite restaurants in Ottawa. Like most fine dining places in the city, they offer ‘casual fine dining’ in a beautifully decorated space. We used to frequent Juniper when they were at their previous location in Hintonburg, and always had excellent service and good food. They also tended to add that special touch; Rich chose to go there for his 30th birthday back in 2005, and the sommelier gave him free ice wine for dessert.

While watching the new location be renovated, we were a bit concerned about how they would deal with being directly beside the Subaru dealership. In fact, the space they moved into used to be the dealership, but it renovated and moved directly next door. On top of that, they’ve got the LCBO and a Superstore right across the street, making for less-than-ideal people watching.

Once inside, however, it’s very nice. Soft lighting and intimate seating allows for a comfortable meal. Tinted windows and blinds that can be pulled down allow for privacy (although I am told the blinds are not always operational). A nicely decorated bar allows for some space to sit while you wait for a table. The only thing I saw that doesn’t fit is their patio, which is open during the warmer months. While it is fenced in, it still overlooks the Subaru dealership, so didn’t seem to have much appeal. I think I only ever saw Juniper’s own staff using it.

Probably by now you are asking yourself, ‘but how was the food?’. Well, I started with the mushroom tempura satay, which was fantastic. I could have easily eaten double my portion (although I’m not sure how much my waistline would have appreciated that!). Rich ordered the same thing and was similarly pleased. My main course was the organic salmon, which was supposed to be poached with quince and apple, but to be honest the fruit flavours were extremely subtle and almost lost with the flavours of the accompanying vegetables. However, others at the table were more impressed with their main dishes. One had the vegetarian dish, which was beautifully presented in a small gourd, and apparently was quite delicious. Others had the beef and said it was perfectly done.

For dessert I ordered the chocolate tasting plate. It is probably one of the better desserts I’ve been served in a restaurant. One part was a shotglass of chocolate-strawberry soup. Another was a small serving of chocolate ganache mousse, served with a homemade marshmallow. All were exactly what I wanted for dessert.

With dinner we had a wonderful bottle of Cabernet Shiraz that our server recommended. I tend to not like Cabernet as I find it doesn’t have enough body (the mid-palate, fleshy, berry flavours) and is all finish. But this was a nicely balanced wine with the Shiraz filling out those holes. Lots of pepper, plum, and black cherries. Maybe not the best choice for my salmon, but excellent on its own.

Overall, I’m glad we got the chance to check out Juniper’s new location before our move to Toronto, and I’m glad it’s the last restaurant we’ll go to while we live in Ottawa. I’d much rather leave the city with good memories of the food scene, and Juniper was up to the task.

Juniper, 245 Richmond Road, (613) 728-0220. Dinner for two with wine, $150.

The Black Tomato has long been one of my favourite restaurants in the Market. I love the casual atmosphere and the food is delicious without being pretentious. The restaurant itself features art by local artists on the walls, and has a display with CDs for sale by the door. The CDs for sale are a remnant from the restaurant’s history; It used to be a record store before it was converted into a restaurant. Even better — the in house music is all available for purchase!

And how is the food? Well, I’ve never had a dish here I didn’t like. For appetizers I’ve tried the baked brie, the spanakopita, the naan, and the warm mushroom salad. For mains I’ve tried the smoked salmon, the tomato flatina, the thai noodle bowl (made without scallops, since I am allergic), and the vegetable tortilla twist, which is pictured here. While none of the dishes were stand out, ‘wow’ dishes, they were all delicious and beautifully presented.

As a bonus for those who care about local products, most of their beer is from local (Ottawa and the surrounding regions, including Quebec) microbrewers.

Recommended for lunch, dinner, or even just a drink at the bar. My one warning: They don’t take reservations and are pretty popular, so be prepared for a short wait before being seated!

The Black Tomato, 11 George Street, (613) 789-8123. Dinner for two with drinks, dessert and tip, $100.

The place is obviously popular, at least on Friday and Saturday nights. We were only able to get a reservation for 6:30, a bit early for dinner but workable none-the-less. We arrived and were seated promptly. Unfortunately (?) it was only a few weeks until Christmas, so the decor and music were holiday-themed. I had hoped they might have a peaceful French-bistro-inspired decor, or at least something slightly funky, but alas, no such luck. We’ll have to return sometime when it isn’t the holidays to see what the interior is like.

Once we’d done a quick once-over of the interior, we turned our attentions to the menus. Like a few other restaurants in Ottawa, Domus tries to focus on local and Canadian cuisine. All of their ingredients are locally obtained, and if something isn’t available locally, then they at least go with Canadian selections. This is also true with their wine list, which features some wonderful bottles from all over Canada, focusing most on Ontario (and therefore the Niagara region).

I drooled over the first page of the list, which was rare/’last call’ bottles of various vintages. We might have been celebrating my birthday, but we also didn’t want to drop $70+ on a single bottle of wine, no matter how delicious it might be. Instead, we turned the page over to the local reds choices, and went with a Stonechurch Cabernet Franc. It was a balanced wine with flavours of blackberry and fresh pepper, and a hint of vanilla. Probably not the best choice for the food we ordered, but it was a lovely wine none-the-less.

I decided to order the barley and black truffle ‘risotto’ as my appetiser. It was creamy and rich and had just the right flavour balance between the earthy truffles and the salty richness of the risotto. Rich ordered foie gras as his starter, and was pleased with both the presentation and the flavour; Domus served their version as a ‘hot and cold’ selection, which let you experience the flavour and texture of foie gras more fully.

For main dishes, I ordered the salmon, which was served with a variety of mushrooms done in a tempura-style batter, and with more black truffle shavings on top. Clearly, I was on some sort of truffle kick that night. I enjoyed the salmon and liked the Asian inspiration for the dish. It had a very nice flavour and the salmon was cooked and presented beautifully. I did feel it needed a little something extra; just salmon and mushrooms with tempura seemed a bit boring. Rich ordered the duck as his main course, which did actually go nicely with our wine. He said it was well prepared and delicious.

Desserts here are made-to-order, as should be expected from a restaurant of this caliber. I ordered the vanilla creme brule, and my Rich ordered a cranberry and white chocolate tarte. My creme brule had the perfect amount of ‘crust’ on top, and had a nice, light flavour, exactly what I was craving. His tarte had a lovely, flaky crust. Both were beautifully presented. Add in a lovely cappuccino and we had a great finish to our evening.

Service was prompt but not as good as some of the restaurants in this class we’ve been to (for example, Juniper or The Urban Pear). This isn’t to say it was bad, just that it wasn’t as attentive to details or as chatty as we’re used to. Generally our server will tell us about the virtues of the local wines presented on the menu, or the chef’s inspiration for the side dishes of the evening, or whatever might be an appropriate topic based on what we’re ordering. It’s possible they were a bit swamped with holiday party preparations and that sort of thing, but I was expecting a bit more than we received, that’s all.

Overall we really did enjoy our meals and found the food and wine quality to be well worth the cost. We will most certainly return to Domus at some point, probably during the summer, when the insanity of the holiday season will not compete with the food and wine.

(87 Murray Street in the Byward Market; 613-241-6007. Dinner for two with wine, $150.)

First, a little background: Rich went to university at McGill, so he got used to Montréal-style cafes, clubs, and bistros. Bistros there are particularly interesting; they tend to be funky and at least a bit trendy, with some effort put into decorating and interior design. They also tend towards a club feel with the music and/or DJ, but still serve a decent menu of various small meals and snacks. Sadly, there are not very many places of that sort in Ottawa, as there seems to be more interest in pubs and bars. So when we moved to Westboro and found out about Trio, we knew we wanted to try it out.

The first thing you’ll probably notice about Trio is how small it is. While I’ve never actually counted, there must be no more than 12 small tables in the place, plus a few chairs around the bar. From spring to fall, they also have 3 or 4 tables in an outdoor, street-side patio. All this means that on a Friday or Saturday night, you need to come early if you’re going to have anywhere to sit.

The second thing you’ll probably notice is just how friendly the staff are. While yes, one would expect decent service at any eatery they intend to frequent, the folks here seem genuinely happy to work there. They are prompt in bringing you your food and drink, check up on you a reasonable amount, and don’t rush you out the door, allowing you plenty of time to linger over your drinks.

You’ll probably also notice the music. Generally they play nothing but music you might hear in a dance/nightclub, with a DJ taking over song selection on Friday and/or Saturday nights. Of course, this leaves a lot of room for variety, where anything from trance and ambient to disco might be heard. I’m also pleased to say that I’ve never heard them play anything by whoever is the ‘blond popstar of the moment’, or anything from the latest boy-band. They seem to realize their regular clientelle (mostly late-20s to 40s) wouldn’t much be interested in that kind of music. However, I do have one minor complaint: the sound system doesn’t seem to be the best quality and the best layout, which means if you choose a seat too close to a speaker, you’ll get a bit of crackling in your ear, and you’ll have to yell so whoever you’re hanging out with can hear you.

Other things of note before I get to the food: the walls are covered in art by local artists, that is available for purchase should one desire. There is also a small area by the bar that has jewelry by local artists on display. These things just add to the ambience without making you feel you’ve stepped into someone’s personal art collection.

Their drink menu consists of popular beers from Ontario and Quebec micro-breweries (eg – McAuslan, Unibroue, Wellington), a few wine-by-the-glass choices, and of course the typical mixed-drink choices. Nothing to be amazed at, but nothing terrible, either. They seem to have given some thought to which wines and which beers grace the menu, and the staff actually know the menu well enough to give drink recommendations.

The food menu? Well, the first few times Rich and I went to trio, they had a full menu with various pastas, pizzas, sandwiches and appetizers. We would usually order two of their pizzas: one containing brie and pear, and the other which was a typical Mediterranean vegetarian, with olives, tomatoes, feta and peppers. Sometimes we would also grab an appetizer to start, such as their garlicky hummus served with pita chips. Sometimes we would also grab dessert, which was brought in from a local bakery daily. I recall having a wonderful apple flan there once, and a delicious hazelnut dacoise another time. So overall, we were happy with the menu, even if it was a bit small. There were items we enjoyed on it and we didn’t mind having them pretty much every time.

Recently, however, Trio seems to have decided to re-market themselves a bit. They now have a menu that clearly states on it ‘We are not a restaurant!’ and their door advertising mentions snacks and drinks, leaving off any mention of meals. The menu still contains most of our favourites, but has done away with most of the sandwiches and all of the pastas. We don’t have a problem with this, since we never went there for large meals in the first place. However, at our trip there a week or two ago, we did notice multiple people come in, look at the menu, and promptly leave again. We can’t be sure if they were old regulars or new to Trio, but it is obvious that this change is causing them to lose a little business. Whether or not this becomes a problem in the long term remains to be seen, but I’m hoping the idea will catch on with locals. The place really deserves to be a hang-out rather than a restarant, which is something their old menu was getting away from a bit.

So in conclusion: If you’re looking for a good meal with an extensive winelist and a ‘see and be seen’ atmosphere, Trio isn’t the right spot for that. Try your luck at one of the popular hangouts in the Byward Market. But if you want something more casual, with appetizers, good drinks, an occasional DJ and a funky decor, then try Trio Bistro.

(307d Richmond Rd, just east of Churchill; 613-722-3887.)

They had renovated a bit since the last time we were in — replacing brown paint and copper with cream and birch, which took away some of the coziness and contemporary feel — and had rotated out about half of their menu, which meant no marinated tofu for me. (The menu on their website, which framesets frustrate my attempts to link, is nearly up-to-date but not entirely.) I had made reservations but they weren’t necessary last night, although I imagine the cold, rainy weather had some effect there.

The Village Cafe’s menu promises “global fusion”, which is a little misleading, since there isn’t much fusion within dishes; it’s more of an eclectic menu than fusion cuisine. Candice and I started with cocktails, but my attempts to stave off our appetizers until they were done met with failure. My shrimp spring rolls were crisp, refreshing, and just shrimpy enough, and came with an addictive soy-sesame-ginger dip and unusually spicy pickled ginger, but didn’t really complement a Manhattan, and Candice’s smoked salmon, cream cheese and cucumber rolls were probably not intended to be accompanied with a Kir Royale. Nevertheless both appetizers were more than good enough to interrupt our drinks instead of joining them.

The timing problem on the appetizers was one element of a general service confusion that continued all night. For some reason servers at The Village Cafe share tables; we had two servers all night who clearly weren’t keeping track of what the other was doing, which led to us being asked by one for our food order less than a minute after ordering drinks from the other, and the other bringing our main courses without knowing who ordered what. Both servers seemed unfamiliar with the restaurant’s cocktail and wine offerings, the sort of scenario where you give up asking and just point.

(The wine list, incidentally, has some of the silliest tasting notes I’ve ever read, and is yet another local wine list which omits vintages. How can you go to the trouble of putting together a wine list that reaches the $60 range without providing vintages? To their credit about half of the wine list is available by the glass.)

Our main courses were excellent. I’ve never been disappointed with anything from the kitchen here at brunch or at dinner, and my pork tenderloin accompanied by fieldberries and pears was done perfectly and the fruits well-chosen to complement, with some simple saffron rice and steamed broccoli to round things out. At first I wished for a bit more interest in the vegetable, but it’s rare that I order a meat-and-sides sort of dish like this, and too much variety would have competed with the fresh fruit on the pork. Candice’s walnut-pesto eggplant “cannelloni” was an interesting take, with thin-sliced rolled eggplant taking the pasta’s role.

Dessert was another story. I think they bring in their desserts, and while their refrigerated case full of cakes and pies looked good, something went seriously, seriously wrong. The cake part of my carrot cake was acceptable, a bit heavy on the coconut but coconut is one of those foods I don’t like to be surprised by, but the icing was not the cream-cheese based type you’d expect on carrot cake. I think it was supposed to be buttercream, but it was the sort of buttercream you’d make with shortening instead of with butter, and it tasted like shortening. I should have sent it back right away, but I was so surprised by it that I wasn’t entirely convinced it was the cake and not just my taste buds playing tricks on me.

The service and dessert problems were far from enough to completely take away our enjoyment of the rest of the meal, but they did manage to bring what could have been an excellent meal down to merely good. If you’re thinking of trying the Village Cafe — and you should, especially if you are already in the area — I would recommend insisting on a single server and sticking with liquid desserts.

(295 Richmond Rd, just east of Churchill; 613-728-2162. Dinner for two with wine, $100.)