Covid's Curveball

Arlo Restaurant
Alex McMahon was set to open his first restaurant three months after his 30th birthday. Instead, he’ll be a few months shy of 31 when Arlo on Somerset Street opens its doors.

“We thought we were going to open in April, which we’re glad we didn’t do,” McMahon says, attributing the first delay to unexpected construction challenges. “We would have been able to open May 1, if not for COVID.”

The pandemic lockdown caused all the trades hang up their hammers for weeks. At that point, McMahon recalibrated expectations, thinking it would likely be mid-September before Arlo opened, so the patios — there’s a small perfect-for-peoplewatching one out front and an idyllic larger space in the back — became a 2021 priority.

“But when we saw liquor licences getting extended and patios taking over, we pivoted, and decided to open the patio as soon as we could,” McMahon says.

For fun, they did a wine bar pop-up on Canada Day. That went so well — every table turned three times — within a week and a half, they opened Petit Arlo for the rest of the summer. The news got better when the city closed Somerset Street on summer weekends, allowing restaurants to expand their outdoor seating into the street.

When McMahon, a sommelier with a stage at Copenhagen’s world-famous Noma restaurant under his belt, originally came up with the concept for the restaurant, he knew he didn’t want to anything precious — no molecular gastronomy, for example. Rather, he wanted dishes that are rooted in classic European cuisine, with a Canadian twist. Chef Jamie Stunt, who has had successful stints at Oz Kafé, Dish Catering and Soif, where he earned the wine bar a place on Air Canada’s prestigious 10 Best New Restaurants list, shares McMahon’s vision.

“Jamie is a really creative guy, but he’s not re-inventing the wheel,” McMahon says. “It’s more about fewer really good ingredients and letting them speak.”

McMahon says he doesn’t have any actual horror stories from his COVID-related struggles to open — the biggest stress was, instead, “the vast unknown,” he says.

“There’s no road map, no guarantee things won’t be turned upside down,” he says. “We have no idea whether there’s going to be a second wave — or when.”

That said, there have been plenty of uplifting stories throughout this continuing journey. Thanks to pandemic-related stimulus measures, he’s been able to realize his dream of selling bottles of wine to go. In addition, the street closure has been great and wouldn’t have happened without COVID. He remembers a couple recently showing up when Petit Arlo was full. He couldn’t seat them but was allowed to pour them bubbly on the street while they waited.

“It reminded me of all of my favourite experiences in Europe,” McMahon says. “This has at least relaxed some of the rules. A lot of people are choosing to take the silver lining and run with it.”

McMahon says staff members have also realized how much they love their work, after it was taken away from them for months. “You miss the action,” he says. “I think it’s made everyone realize why they do this. They love hospitality and food and throwing a party.”

Another silver lining is that had construction been on time from the beginning, Arlo would have been in the process of opening, with the staff on payroll when the lockdown came.

Construction started again the day it was permitted and every day Petit Arlo has been open, they’ve been using the kitchens at Bar Lupulus to prepare.

“We are their competition and yet they handed us keys to the door,” he says. “A lot of people helping us out. That’s the reason we’re able to do what we’re doing.” Even now that Bar Lupulus has re-opened, it’s still allowing Arlo staff to prep there earlier in the day.

“I can’t tell you how many calls I’ve gotten from restaurant owners,” he says. “They’re not empty gestures. We’re running the wine glasses we’re using at Petit Arlo through the dishwasher at [neighbouring restaurant] Jabberwocky at the end of the night.”

In terms of management, McMahon is on “wine,” his wife, Emily Bertrand, shares management responsibilities with Mark Ghali and Stunt is in charge of food. Nadine Martel and Jean-Michel Lemieux, a couple McMahon met when he was sommelier at Fauna, are investors.

Ghali has a business background and McMahon says it’s been interesting to see how he solves restaurant industry problems from that perspective.

“So often managers were waiters,” McMahon says. “From an HR [human resources] and business perspective, it’s cool to see someone tackle from a totally different angle than I would.”

Arlo Restaurant
340 Somerset St., W., Ottawa, Ont.
restaurantarlo.com | @arlo.somerset

Thr33’s Co. Snack Bar
Ian Wilson, Tam Auafua and Tyler Da Silva will try to make a go of a space that has been a revolving door since New Nupur closed several years ago. After that, it became shared-plate restaurant Makita and then Indulgence Café. Now it’s Thr33’s Company, run by three friends who collectively have about 45 years’ experience in Ottawa restaurants.

They envisioned a snacky sharing-style restaurant that would stay open late and be a draw for industry types who get off work late. When they started looking for a location, they saw the Indulgence Café space and liked it, but the restaurant was still open. Then they got a call from their realtor saying it was closing New Year’s Day, 2019, so they started negotiating.

On Feb. 25, as COVID-19 was ravaging China, they signed the lease. Three weeks later, Ontario’s lockdown came into effect. It was a blow, but it gave them time to complete their cosmetic renovation. The owners of Indulgence had painted Makita’s exposed brick white, so there was some heavy-duty sandblasting to do.

“We had to get rid of the white,” says Tyler Da Silva, the chef of the trio. “But it was basically the only reno we had to do.”

They did that work themselves — while keeping their day jobs — over what they thought would be a six-week period. Da Silva was working as chef de cuisine at Sidedoor, Wilson was at the Senate Tavern on Bank and Luxe in the ByWard Market and Auafua was managing El Camino on Elgin Street.

“We were in here from 9 a.m. till when we had to go to work,” he says.

When the lockdown came, it allowed them to slow things down. Their landlord was also understanding.

“We were taking it day by day and week by week,” Da Silva says. “At least we weren’t like a lot of other restaurants that went into COVID with mountains of debt to suppliers.”

While they had reached out to some people they wanted to hire, they didn’t have anyone on their payroll yet and potential employees understood the situation.

“We didn’t need to deliver any bad news to anyone,” he says.

Now that the restaurant has opened, Da Silva is looking after the kitchen, Wilson runs front-of-house and the bar while Auafua will take care of the administrative tasks.

“It’s been the dream — to make a career out of this restaurant game,” Wilson says.

He says they’ve already had returning customers and the word of mouth has been travelling since they opened.

“This is the fun part,” Auafua adds. “Serving drinks and providing service to people.”

Da Silva says one advantage COVID gave them was not having developed any bad habits they have to break.

“Everything we’re doing to open this restaurant [in terms of health and sanitary practices], people are seeing our place in this way the first time they come,” he says. “If you go to your favourite spot, and it has all these new measures in place, it loses its lustre a bit.”

The team received good advice from the owners of Two Six Ate and also chef Walid El-Taweel, formerly of Fairouz and now of C.A. Paradis. The owners of neighbouring restaurants, Erlings Variety and Banditos, have also been helpful, as have other businesses on their northern section of Bank Street in the Glebe.

Wilson says the grand opening will have to wait until people are more comfortable being inside.

“A lot of people dream of their wedding day,” Wilson says. “For me, I dreamed about my soft opening. We can’t have that welcoming we’ve always dreamed of.”

Da Silva says the three industry veterans mostly stay in their own lanes in terms of responsibilities, but when they want another opinion, they collaborate well.

One of the biggest challenges has been not knowing what’s coming next, when the province starts to open up more. “People ask us about our plan and basically, it’s whatever [Premier] Doug [Ford] says.”

Visitors to Thr33’s Company will discover creative snacks and cocktails on offer.

“I don’t want a protein, a potato and veg anymore,” Da Silva says. “With us, you might want to pop in and have a quick peanutbutter habanero drumstick. We’re a pre- and a post-place. You’re not committed to us. We want to have people come in, have a couple gins and a tuna tartare.

“Recently, we had a friend’s birthday,” he says. “It was a group of six and they ordered the [whole] menu twice, bless them. It’s fun to talk about the food and drink while having all these plates on the table.”

Thr33's Co. Snack Bar
589 Bank St., Ottawa, Ont.
thr33sco.ca | @thr33sco.snackbar

Aiāna
Aiāna is the dream of Raghav Chaudhary, a 26-year-old Ottawa chef who’s running the new restaurant on the corner of Queen and O’Connor streets. His father, Devinder Chaudhary, is the investor. The elder Chaudhary is an accountant, who co-owns a firm based in Texas though he lives in Orleans.

That dream has had many startling moments since March. The original opening date was April 20. When the lockdown came on March 15, they were concerned, but thought it might just be a two-week thing.

“Instead, it lasted several months,” says Raghav, 26, who is used to pivoting. He turned to cooking after deciding he liked his part-time job — cooking at Vittoria Trattoria in the ByWard Market — more than he’d ever like accounting, which he was studying at the time.

When the lockdown came, it put construction behind schedule, leaving him with no place to test menu items. But Tu Le, his chef de cuisine, had worked at MēNa, which offered its kitchen to the Aiāna team. Rahgav and Le spent two months in that kitchen before MēNa had a flood and they had to move again — this time to Rahgav’s parents’ home in Orleans.

“We did four tastings in Orleans — every Friday; my mom recently renovated her kitchen with me in mind,” says the chef who started his training at the Cordon Bleu and then studied at Napa’s Greystone chapter of the Culinary Institute of America for two years. He worked at several San Francisco restaurants, including Michelin-starred Michael Mina and Villon at the Proper Hotel, before going to Sweden for a stages at the Michelin- Star restaurant, Fäviken.

Aiāna’s cuisine is contemporary Canadian with a local, seasonal menu. What will set it apart from a host of other fine-dining restaurants doing the same thing, he says, is the story.

“Every dish has a story, even if it’s a simple oyster,” he says. “We’ll explain why we chose it, where it came from, the heritage of every dish.”

He says the kitchen team will always keep Canada’s culture in mind, what it means to be a Canadian and what Canada is all about. Ingredients will include items such as black walnut vinegar for vinaigrette and French onion soup made with elk broth.

The restaurant was built to “put on a show” with the open kitchen and bar, both designed by Linebox. He says they’ll pay close attention to the details, remembering for example that Mrs. X likes her water bubbly, while Mr. X likes his flat or that she prefers a seat by the window.

Asked about the COVID hiccups he endured — besides construction being put off — he said it just served as an additional stressor.

“This being my first restaurant, my first gig as executive chef, it’s nerve-racking enough,” he says. “We didn’t expect COVID. It’s been a rollercoaster ever since. We’re in a very vulnerable industry, where 50 per cent of restaurants shut down in the first year. It was a very dark time for restaurants around the world. [For us], it was the unknown about when we were going to open. There was also staying in tune with the public health department. If we didn’t have the funds to keep going, we wouldn’t have survived. Having an owner that cares about the staff has saved us.”

Chaudhary says one thing that “kind of came out of nowhere” as they were pushing to finish the dining room and kitchen was patios opening up. They planned for a patio next year, but quickly built one this year.

“But a lot of the tradesmen who build patios were all contracted around the city so it meant scrambling to get it built,” he says.

The patio was to open the same day as the restaurant — on Aug. 7, but it ultimately opened Aug. 28. With the patio and the adjusted seating inside to allow for social distancing, the restaurant can accommodate 86 diners instead of 135.

Staff at Aiāna — including Le and sommelier Alex Nicholson, who presides over an 850-bottle glass-clad wine cellar — get a salary, based on 40 to 44 hours a week, they get overtime for hours over that and benefits after passing probation.

“We wanted to bring stabilization and a professional culture for people in the industry,” he says. “We wanted to be one of the first in the nation to provide salaries and benefits.”

In addition, there’s a service charge on bills at Aiāna, so there’s no tipping.

The restaurant is located on the corner of O’Connor and Queen streets, in a space that used to be Laurier Optical, just east of Queen Street Fare.

“As Sean O’Sullivan, the director at Bentall [Real Estate Services] told us, it’s a centre ice location.”

And, he says, opening at the height of Canada’s produce season will allow them to preserve local produce to get them through the winter season.

Aiāna Restaurant Collective
50 O'Connor St., Ottawa, Ont.
aiana.ca | 613.680.8100 | @dineaiana