'A Place-Making-Project'
As Manuela Teixeira sits at a shaded table at Biscotti et Cie, her café and restaurant in Chelsea, Que., talking to edible Ottawa, it feels as though she could come up with another business idea at any moment.
She’s sipping a coffee and eating a croissant — one she discovered in San Francisco and asked pastry chef Max Rondeau to recreate — and talking about how, in 16 years, she’s gone from being a marketing agency doyenne to the owner of two Chelsea pubs, one distillery (read story on page 51), two long- and shortterm loft rental buildings, another guest house, a shop and a food truck. And there’s nothing slapdash about any of them.
“I was running the agency, but I was always working with a lot of people from the tourism industry, so I was getting to know people through the network,” she says.
Then she was approached to buy The Chelsea Pub, a rundown little place.
“So I said, ‘Let’s invest in this and see what we can do with it,” Teixeira recalls. “When we bought it, it was an old boys’ club. I remember going into my own place and feeling uncomfortable. Women have to be comfortable sitting at the bar. It took a few years, but now every woman who goes in there feels safe.”
Today, the pub is emblematic of what she’s done in Chelsea to create community in Terrasse du Square, the centre of her operations, which are all built around it, though it was the last piece of the puzzle. A courtyard of sorts, directly adjacent to the pub, her food truck (which is actually a trailer fixed in place and is called Terrasse du Square) and the distillery, the outdoor space has tables, lights, warming lamps, a fire pit and a pétanque court. Teixeira, originally from Portugal, wanted to create a European small-town community feel in the neighbourhood.
Summer events in the square included a weekly artisans’ market (from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sundays), featuring florists, artists, jewellers, gourmet food producers, potters and candle makers, to name a few. There were open mic nights, movie nights (every Wednesday at dusk), DJ evenings, family days (with face-painting, inflatables and music), jazz nights, as well as pétanque tournaments, five-course dinners and workshops in such diversions as clay-making and swing dancing. (Check the website for autumn events.)
Meanwhile, at the pub, they started small, making incremental changes. Today, it’s at least four times its original footprint thanks to a small addition in 2010 and a larger one in 2017, which included creating an event space upstairs where Teixeira can host corporate events, social events or weddings.
When she became a pub owner, she went to study at Le Cordon Bleu in Ottawa.
“I wanted to learn everything,” she says. “And I like to cook. I’m a foodie.”
Weddings took place in The Square all summer, according to events manager Ögan Swen Amey, who Teixeira met at an event at the Museum of History and then pursued because she liked what he did. He smiles when told everyone who works there seems really happy. “We are,” he says. It shows around every turn.
Pub food philosophy
Daniel Lalonde has had a career in fine dining on the Quebec side, with stints at storied places such as 1908 and Baccara. He also owned Ambrosia and Bostaurus in Aylmer. Now, he happily plies his trade at The Chelsea Pub while overseeing the food and beverage for the wedding business, Biscotti et Cie and the food truck, Terrasse du Square.
Like many chefs these days, Lalonde likes to buy locally as much as he can and is inspired by the seasons. Saveurs des Monts is his chicken supplier, vegetables come from Juniper Farm, Cinquième Saison supplies decorative and edible flowers for the bar and kitchen, and coffee comes from the Happy Goat Coffee Co.
When edible Ottawa visited, he presented a gigantic salad with blue cheese, bacon, grilled chicken, beets, beet chips and greens.
Cocktail artist Tyler St.-Jean operates the same way. He stocks beer from Chelsea & Co Microbrasserie, Brasserie artisanale Gallicus, À la dérive and Brasseurs des Collines and wine from Vignoble Les Collines. Meanwhile, the distillery uses juniper berries from Ferme et Forêt along with some it imports from Italy.
St.-Jean mixed up a passion fruit cocktail made with the distillery’s gin and garnished with a pansy and a chive flower from a nearby farm.
St.-Jean speaks as passionately as Lalonde about using local spirits — especially those made at the distillery — and local beer. Teixeira thinks local wine has a ways to go, but she’s keen to stock it whenever it meets her standards.
Come and stay a while
In 2016, she had the chance to buy a beautiful neighbouring plot of land, home to mature trees and a sloping landscape similar to Nordik Spa-Nature Chelsea just up the road.
“It was just sitting there,” she says. “And I thought, ‘We need some accommodation.’”
With Gatineau Park on the other side of the street from The Square, she wasn’t wrong about that, and she and her business partner — one of the owners of Nordik Spa-Nature — went about developing plans to build two three-storey buildings with more than 20 loft-style units in each. Today, they are rented by a mix of short-term and long-term tenants who cherish the proximity to Nordik, which is a world-class spa, the national park and the businesses in The Square.
The lofts have high ceilings, balconies or terraces, and huge windows that look into the trees, reminding visitors that they’re in the country. Most have fridges and stoves, but the smallest ones — the ones more reserved for short-term guests — just have bar fridges.
Biscotti et Cie
When Teixeira first bought the abandoned cottage that now houses Biscotti et Cie in 2010, her daughters were still young, and she wanted to make the café as family-oriented as possible.
She smiles as she looks at the hedge surrounding the terrace, remembering how she planted the trees when she first bought the cottage.
“I wanted to block out the traffic,” she says, referring to the relatively busy intersection of Old Chelsea Road and Scott Road, where the bistro sits. “There was nothing here.”
She planted all of the quaint gardens surrounding the café’s terrace and the building and installed interlock on the terrace.
“I put a lot of love into this,” she says, pointing to a tiny red building at the end of the property. “That’s for the kids — I call it Mini Biscotti. I remember when my kids were small, the only restaurant you could take them to was St-Hubert.”
Biscotti et Cie’s menu includes brunch options such as woodfired breakfast pizza (featuring poached eggs and hollandaise), Benedict bagel, French toast and an apple crisp breakfast pizza, to name a few. Lunch includes paninis, salads and more woodfired pizzas.
“It’s very satisfying to see everything done,” she says. “I realize that it has had a great impact on a lot of people.”
That said, some locals have been vocal about her developments.
“They call it tourism,” she says. “I think when you build things like this, the locals should be the first to come. It’s about building community.”
Others understand that.
“Last week, we did a dog pride walk, and someone came up to me and said that I had made a place-making project.”
Teixeira built a light-filled two-storey modern addition to the original cottage structure, which now houses the kitchen and the order counter. Midway up the stairs to a loft is an innovative space with a north-facing window that features bar seats and a long bar-shaped table perfect as a working nook. Upstairs is a space reminiscent of those found in the Middle East, with cushion seating on the floor in front of the window on one end.
“I love design, and I like to add elements from other cultures,” she says.
She also loves art, so when artist Marc Walters approached her about potentially doing something with his sculptures from the National Capital Commission’s visitor centre in Chelsea, she jumped at the chance.
“He approached me and said, ‘I have to take out the exhibit, and I don’t want to throw it away. Would you like to do something with it?’ I knew what to do with it.”
The project was a series of twisted twigs and a hand-built bird’s nest, but since Teixeira installed it on the wraparound front porch at Biscotti et Cie, real birds have also started building nests in it. She thought of leaving paper in a visible spot, inviting visitors to leave a note. Many have done so over the years, and they still do. When edible Ottawa visited, notes had been left in several different languages, including Arabic.
Meanwhile, her latest project is the Manchester Pub, which is at the east end of town and features her trademark touches.
“Again, the owner approached me,” she says. “I looked at the numbers and said, ‘Why not?’ I have had a lot of people come to me wanting to sell. If it fits with the business that we do, I look at it.”
Terrasse du Square
248 Old Chelsea Rd., Chelsea
terrassedusquare.ca | @squareoldchelsea
