Méli-Mélo July 2024
Extending Aperitivo
When the team at Il Negozio Nicastro was looking to re-launch its seating area following pandemic closures, it saw an opportunity to introduce Ottawa to the apericena. “In Italy, the traditional aperitivo has evolved,” Robert Nicastro explains, “and in many places, the traditional aperitivo runs through dinner (cena).”
Nicastro, who runs the shop on Wellington Street with his siblings, opened Ventuno within the store at the end of 2023. The name is a nod to Pier 21 in Halifax, through which Nicastro’s parents immigrated to Canada from Italy.
Open through lunch and into the evening, Ventuno’s menu includes small plates and a selection of cheese and salumi boards, featuring products carried in the store. “We saw this as a perfect marriage with our food shop,” Nicastro says, “which, depending on the time of year, boasts between 200 and 300 types of cheese, as well as an extensive variety of salumi and prosciuttos.”
Just like an aperitivo hour, cocktails are an integral part of any apericena. An amaro-centric cocktail list was created by veteran bartender Stephen Flood, and the wine list is exclusively Italian. Apericena is very much a choose-your-own- adventure situation. Guests can tack it onto their shopping, make it a full meal “or sometimes they just come in for a pre-or post-dinner cocktail after a night out at one of the great restaurants in the neighbourhood,” Nicastro says.
Ventuno (inside Il Negozio Nicastro)
1355 Wellington St. W., Ottawa
@ilnegozionicastro | 613.729.9100 | negozio.ca
Gathering in the County
Justin Daniel Tse has witnessed the tourism explosion in Prince Edward County first-hand. Tse joined the team at Wander the Resort in the summer of 2023 to head its new restaurant, Gather, and less than a year later it to build out a supplementary commissary kitchen just to keep up. “I can’t believe it’s only been eight months, and we’re fully booked weeks in advance,” Tse says.
Tse now leads the food and beverage program for Wander, which includes Gather, as well as menus for the resort’s cabins, beach club bar and the Nordic spa that is set to open on the property this summer. With so many moving parts, Tse notes that the actual cooking becomes the smallest part of his job. “It’s a lot of logistics,” he says, “training, planning, organizing, figuring out if we have enough electricity... this is my wheelhouse.” The list goes on, but at the heart of it all remains, of course, the food.
“You can’t ask for a better set up in terms of getting the best products,” Tse says of the resort and restaurant’s lakeside location in Bloomfield, singing the praises of the local produce, meats, cheeses and beverages. With the local bounty, Tse has drawn inspiration from the resort’s Nordic esthetic and his own Asian heritage to create a menu of shareable dishes with varied global influences. Gather serves brunch, lunch and dinner. In the winter, Tse introduced an Asian night market menu, and for the summer, he is revving up slushie machines for the beach club bar to go with a menu of ceviche and grilled meats. It’s all part of the variety Tse is juggling as the resort expands its offerings.
Having grown up in Kingston, Tse was familiar with the area and had vacationed a couple times in Sandbanks as a kid. “But never once did I expect it to be the way it is now,” he says of the hospitality boom in Prince Edward County, quickly listing off numerous restaurants in the area that have become destinations in their own right, amidst the beaches, vineyards and breweries. “There are so many reasons to easily spend a weekend in the County,” he explains, “if not a full week.”
Gather at Wander the Resort
15841 Loyalist Parkway, Bloomfield
wandertheresort.com | 613.902.6650 | @wandertheresort
Jamaican Patty Party
Jacob Henry jokes that he had no choice but to go to culinary school. When he was looking to change careers, his wife was supportive, but stipulated that he had to first go to culinary school if he was going to pursue his love of cooking and open a restaurant.
That stipulation quickly proved to be a good one, as Henry’s business took off while he was still a student.“Before graduating, I decided to start doing my own thing,” Henry explains. He began selling his Jamaican patties while still in the culinary program at Algonquin College, which led to the cafeteria at the college selling his rotis and patties. Henry even taught a few classes on Caribbean cooking in the culinary program he was enrolled in as a student. “It was pretty cool to do that while I was in class,” he acknowledges.
In 2018, he launched Run2Patty as a catering business working out of a commercial kitchen. By 2020, he was able to open his own space in the Carlington neighbourhood and has been offering take-out there ever since. Henry describes the menu as “mainly Caribbean with some Southern influence” and is recreating dishes that he grew up eating as a kid. His Jamaican mother had him helping in the kitchen from a young age. His favourites are the oxtail and fried snapper, while the jerk chicken and chicken and waffles remain perennial crowd pleasers. He’s now busy workshopping frozen patties so customers can cook them at home.
Run2Patty
1224 Shillington Ave., Unit A, Ottawa
@run2patty | 343-999-2283
More for (Y)our Community
The corner at Bank and Arlington Street became a little more caffeinated this spring. “The community has really come together around us,” barista Jacob Bleecker says of the people who have become regulars at Arlington Five over almost a decade. When the space at the coffee shop began to feel a bit tight to keep up with all the coffee prep and baking, owner Jessie Duffy looked to rent some extra space nearby.
Arum Korean Market on Bank Street happened to be down- sizing around the same time, so the Arlington Five crew began renting the space as a prep kitchen. Bleecker took the reins on building out the space’s shopfront, and Take5 opened on May 5 (Bleecker chuckles that he liked all the fives involved, it felt auspicious). Bleecker took inspiration from classic depanneurs, corner stores, and his grandparents’ cottage for the space that he describes as a “mosaic of things.”
Bleecker, who began working in coffee 10 years ago at Tim Hortons and Starbucks before moving to cafés in Melbourne, Australia and Toronto, Ont., came back to Ottawa and started at Arlington Five in 2021. “I wanted to work somewhere that really put thought and care into their coffee,” he says, noting that owner Jessie Duffy’s ethos of Arlington 5 being a part of “(y)our community” resonated strongly with him.
Bleecker is extending that mindset to Take5, hoping that the shop can serve the community as a convenience store, a local market, or simply a spot for folks to grab a cup of tea while waiting at the bus stop in front of the shop. “Our core offerings are in-house items, framed by curated goods from the community,” Bleecker says.
There is drip coffee from Lulo Coffee Roasters, a variety of grab-and -go items made in-house for breakfast, lunch and snacking and a selection of ceramics, jewelry and art from local makers. Takeaway items are offered in returnable reusable containers and there is a mug library to cut down on single use cups. “It’s all part of our little food ecosystem here,” Duffy says. Folks looking for a latte will still have to go around the corner to Arlington 5, but for those looking to grab a quick coffee or any other part of Take5’s mosaic will have another space to call their own in the neighbourhood.
- Update - Currently closed -
Take5
508 Bank St, Ottawa | @arlingtonfive | 613.233.7959
The Royal Bees
Not only is the venerable Château Laurier a place to rest your weary head in Ottawa, it’s also a home for bees too. The Château keeps nine hives hidden on the rooftop, and a further 13 just over the road at the Senate building in the former Ottawa rail station. These hives are cared for by 89-year-old Bill Thurlow, the owner of Heavenly Honey, an east-end based honey producer and Bruno Lair, a long-time employee at the Château who is a beekeeper-in-training. Thurlow has been keeping bees for more than 50 years, while Lair’s father was a beekeeper, too.
When Catherine McLaughlin started as events and activation manager at the Château in January 2024, she immedi- ately saw the potential for the honey made from Château Laurier bees. She rapidly engaged a graphic designer, they came up with the suitably queenly name Royal Reserve, and McLaughlin approached Debbie Gervais at Sunflower Soaps, a local clean cosmetics company, to develop a body line using Château honey. Gervais has made a richly creamy body lotion that is so redolent with honey that it lingers the next day, a lip balm and soap.
“I was very impressed with the quality and immediately fell in love with her products,” McLaughlin says. “We are very strategic about who we align with, and I like supporting women entrepreneurs in our community.”
The Château honey is used widely in the kitchen and was recently featured in a shaken honey iced espresso. Add a 1 ounce shot of double espresso, 1 ounce of honey syrup (equal parts Royal Reserve honey and hot water combined) and ice to a shaker. Shake vigorously, strain into a glass and top with your milk of choice.
Fairmont Château Laurier
1 Rideau St., Ottawa
chateaulaurier.com | @fairmontlaurier
