'Fish. Drinks. Family.'
Le Poisson Bleu is an extension of the home Alex Bimm grew up in. Right down to the family photos that adorn the front bar and the wall outside the kitchen, this restaurant is a family affair, run by Bimm, his brother Eric and their cousin Sophie Bertrand.
The restaurant’s tagline sums it up: “Fish. Drinks. Family.” And the website explains that the “brothers Bimm grew up along with their cousin Sophie being treated to the unbelievably good dinners cooked by their grand-mama Réjane, who also was the most gracious host. We are committed to making sure our guests have as much fun as the Bertrands on Christmas Eve.”
Chef Alex Bimm exemplifies the motto and cares as much about hospitality as he does about cooking — which is to say, a lot. When edible Ottawa asked him to prepare a dish that summed up his approach to food in one plate, he cooked a whole Arctic char from a sustainable organic farm in Gaspé, having deboned and “spatchcocked” it before it went on the grill. He had dry-aged the char for five days prior.
“I wanted to show you a family-style plate because that’s what we do,” Bimm says. “I like using every part of the animal — nose to tail. I worked at Au Pied du Cochon, so I started that there. Cooking sustainable food is the way of the future.”
On the side, he did a plate of local Swiss chard from Terramor Farms and asparagus from Rideau Pines Farm, along with his house-made tuna “bacon,” made from the belly of the large ocean-going beast.
“I wanted to showcase some of our charcuterie, so, with the vegetables, I made some tuna bacon,” he says. “It’s cured for seven days, smoked and then I dry-age it for another 30 days. It’s the first time I’ve ever done successful fish bacon. This one is actually very bacony.”
The char dish was on the summer menu and served three comfortably for $96.
The road to proprietorship
The restaurant’s name — Le Poisson Bleu — is a riff off a family business called Galerie Le Corbeau Bleu, which was run by Bimm’s mom, Janice Moorhead, in Wakefield, the seat of the Bertrand clan. The Galerie closed about 15 years ago, but it was where Alex Bimm had his first job at the age of 13.
“It’s a big homage,” Bimm says of the restaurant, where he even uses some treasured pieces of his grandmother’s china for service.
“They’re probably all going to break, but I feel happy that they’re having their last sendoff here,” he says, showing a set of plates featuring birds that he particularly likes. “We had two or three boxes of her things.
“We grew with refined table settings,” he adds. “I love thinking about that when I serve my grandma’s plates. She passed away, but she would have loved it here. I was brought up by my mom and my grandmother, so a very matriarchical family, though we also had a relationship with our dad.”
Bimm’s culinary journey continued from family dinners to a job working for Che Chartrand at Wakefield’s Chez Eric when Chartrand, now the personal chef of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family, owned it.
Bimm went on to study in the culinary arts program at Algonquin College in 2007 and then moved to Montreal to work at two veritable institutions: Chef Martin Picard’s lively and unapologetically caloric Au Pied du Cochon and Claude Pelletier’s refined Club Chasse et Pèche. He then moved back to Ottawa and worked at Whalesbone for a few years before he completed some stages in France. On his return to the Ottawa area, he joined the team at Les Fougères in Chelsea. He then returned to the Ottawa side as chef de cuisine at Whalesbone on Bank Street before COVID closed down that branch of the multi-restaurant operation.
“That’s when I decided I wanted to do this,” he says, of opening his own restaurant. Eric, the general manager, and Bertrand, the bar chef, were ready to take the leap, too.
The team went to work redesigning the space formerly occupied by Roku, brightening up the walls with white and blue hues and adding all kinds of personal touches, including grandmama’s china and lots of thrift shop purchases. They also hired artist Daniel Wakeman to produce two works of art: A trout — gouache on butcher paper — that hangs in the front of the restaurant as a centrepiece, and a large oil painting of an octopus — named Réjane after the owners’ grandmother — that hangs over the kitchen bar.
“Both pieces were designed for the space specifically,” Wakeman says. “The Bimms wanted pieces that would fit thematically with the direction of the restaurant. They source their trout locally, and agreed that a large oversized trout would make sense when I told them my idea — a centrepiece.”
The restaurant proper is licensed for 75, but seats 60 comfortably so long as COVID is still wafting through the air. There’s also a garden patio in the back that seats 14 when the weather allows.
Eric Bimm, three years Alex’s senior, is also a chef and helps with prep work in the kitchen before service, while also balancing front-of-house and general manager responsibilities. He has long experience managing Ottawa establishments, most recently as the manager of The Whalesbone Warehouse on Kent Street. Bertrand, meanwhile, left Wakefield for Montreal 10 years ago, making her mark at Milky Way, and as one of the opening bartenders at the Atwater Cocktail Club, both known for their mixology.
Le Poisson Bleu is open five nights a week at the moment. “One day we want to do brunch, but I want to get our dinner service mastered and then go from there,” Bimm says.
Bimm-style cooking
Bimm describes his style of cooking as “very old school with modern twists.” And his restaurant is unapologetic about its lack of choice for those who don’t love the fruits of the seas and rivers. Not that there’s nothing on offer. The summer menu featured duck confit as the solitary meat option. Vegan wasn’t an option.
“I was always most excited by whole fresh fish when I was a young chef,” Bimm says. “The chef would take it and prepare it and no one else was allowed to because fish was very expensive. That kind of added to the mystique of it. There’s also the fact that [chefs often] receive our meats prepared, but with fish, you have to do everything yourself. And, it’s a natural animal — it’s not bred to be consumed. It’s part of nature and natural evolution. To me, that’s amazing.”
Bimm also places a lot of importance on sustainability. He won’t serve fish that isn’t sustainable.
“There’s the modern food trends about sustainability and keeping things local and caring about where things come from,” he says. “Fish has a big role in that.”
Bimm is therefore excited about his dry-aging program and that’s why he chooses to showcase his full Arctic char dish.
“I just want you to taste and understand what we’re trying to do,” he says.
Bimm’s influences include Yannick La Salle as well as Charles Part and Jennifer Warren-Part — the chef de cuisine and the owners of Les Fougères respectively.
“Yannick was a big influence at Les Fougères,” Bimm says. “He’s quickly becoming a legend. Charlie and Jen are also big inspirations for me. They’ve been doing it for years and they are still doing it. Working for them was just amazing.”
He also names Josh Niland, chef and owner of Saint Peter, a fish restaurant in Sydney, Australia. Though he hasn’t met him, he’s spent a lot of time reading his cookbooks.
“He’s amazing,” he says. “I don’t even understand how his brain works.”
He also spends a lot of time just reading about old and new techniques, always returning to the Larousse Gastronomique.
“When I flip through it now, I realize this style of cooking is big now.
“I also take a lot of inspiration from Montreal culture of dining. I like the vibrant atmosphere. I think Montreal is one of the best food cities in the world.”
Asked about his favourite Montreal restaurants, Bimm names Bouillon Bilk and Au Pied de Cochon. He also likes Joe Beef as a company.
“I was there before the press,” he says of the Joe Beef consortium. “Every place they open has its own character. It’s fun. I like keeping it very fun when you go to a restaurant. I want people to feel welcome and like they’re in my home.”
Unique ingredient sourcing
It’s not every day you see a couple of local sturgeon dry-aging in a specially designed fish fridge, but that’s what was hanging the day edible dropped by. His supplier is Peché Fumé, a company that fishes lake sturgeon on the St. Lawrence River and also carp, bullhead, catfish and trout, some of it in the Ottawa River.
“Sturgeon season is two weeks,” Bimm says. “I think they’re allowed to catch 200. I’d take them all, but I have no space.”
When he first opened, he did a cassoulet dish with sturgeon, but that came off the menu as the weather warmed up.
“Now I’m leaning towards pot-au-feu,” Bimm says of the fate of the two fish hanging in the fridge. “Or poached sturgeon chop.”
For the latter, he’d consider a rare addition of foie gras — something he says is done humanely around Ottawa — along with a nice broth, mustards and pickles.
For vegetables, he uses Terramor Farms, Rideau Pines Farms and Acorn Creek. Acorn Creek owner Andy Terauds has several contacts who provide foraged goods and Bimm takes full advantage of that service.
“He’ll have bee pollen, sumac, spruce tips,” Bimm says.
When he’s composing a dish, he always considers seasonality and he tries to make sure people will understand the dish. “High-end fine dining isn’t where my heart is,” he says. “It’s hospitality. I try to think about the guest experience and keeping the prices reasonable.”
The wine list is also accessible but exclusive in the sense that people will be able to discover small producers of all-natural organic wines. And Bertrand’s cocktails, he says, are amazing. “I think she’s going to be a rising star in Ottawa.”
Down to business
True to his desire to provide hospitality in the moment, Bimm eschews is having an Instagram-worthy menu, plates or restaurant. He just wants a beautiful space with great food in a neighbourhood setting that people want to come back to.
“There are so many people in this neighbourhood who are slowly discovering us,” he says. “I don’t care what lists we’re on. I’ve worked at lots of great restaurants that aren’t on any lists. I just want people to come here and have a good time and I want to make the food I want to make.”
He says the new-restaurant honeymoon is over for them and now they’re working on building into a solid choice again and again.
“We’re not filling up every night,” he says. “But we’re still babies and we’re still in a pandemic. Tourism isn’t back yet, but we do have some groups booking, which is nice. With groups, I try to hard sell a whole fish.”
Once a month on Sundays, Le Poisson Bleu does an industry night, giving Ottawa chefs, bartenders and servers a place to go on a rare night off. Meanwhile, for his nights off, Bimm spends his time biking in the Gatineau Hills, playing ping pong and hanging out with his cat, Gon.
Le Poisson Bleu
610 Somerset St W, Ottawa, Ont.
lepoissonbleu.net | 613.656.1638 | @lepoissonbleu_ottawa
