Méli-Mélo September 2024
Westboro Down Under
After happening upon a small café and roastery in Queensland, Australia, in the early 2000s, Chris Petrie “fell in love with the idea of being a barista.” Petrie would go on to live in Australia for 14 years, at a time when coffee culture was really taking off. “It was competitive, but in a good way,” Petrie explains, likening the scene to the explosion of craft breweries that Ottawa has seen in the last decade.
Upon returning to Canada, he was working as a consultant, providing barista training and advising cafés on equipment servicing. While opening his own space was always in the back of his mind, Petrie spent the last decade working for Equator Coffee. In the last couple of years, Petrie felt that he was at a crossroads and decided that it was time to branch out on his own. “There was so much support around,” Petrie explains. “It’s never a guarantee, but I had confidence there were enough people pushing for me to do it."
The Bower Coffee Co. opened its doors in June in Westboro. “It’s a community meeting space,” Petrie says, noting that he wanted to return to the “Australian roots” of the coffee culture that he loves. “The focus is on coffee service, as opposed to fast food coffee.”
It’s a sleek space, with a carefully selected variety of coffee beans on the shelves, including September Coffee Company, a micro roastery in Stittsville. Petrie describes their coffees as unlike anything else he’s ever tried, more on the “exotic and fruity side."
Petrie is eager to connect with guests over their coffee choices and says there’s something on the menu for everyone. As for his favourites, he likes to start with black Aeropress coffee in the morning for something light and nuanced, and then a small cappuccino in the afternoon “as a treat.”
The Bower Coffee Co.
429 Richmond Rd., Ottawa
@thebowercoffee
Pastry Dreams Come True
Sanaz Homa refers to the past year as the busiest and most challenging of her life, but she also calls it a dream come true. In the summer of 2024, Homa celebrated the first anniversary of her Main Street business, Tartelette Bakery and Café.
Homa was working as a software engineer when she discovered a “hidden talent” as she decorated cakes for family and friends. She began taking classes and workshops to hone her skills and enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu in Ottawa in 2020 to formally train in pastry. “I decided to change my career and follow my dream,” Homa says.
At Tartelette, Homa is serving up French desserts and viennoiseries, with Iranian twists and flavours to pay homage to her background. As the name hints, a variety of delicate tarts are always available, and her Shirazi tart has proven to be the most popular. Named after the historic Iranian city of Shiraz, it blends French pastry technique and Persian pistachios and saffron, topped with delicate rose petals. It’s Homa’s creation and her favourite dessert to make; the image of the Shirazi tart is also front and centre on Tartelette’s merchandise for super fans. Homa recommends pairing it with the saffron latte.
Along with Homa's fusion creations, folks have flocked to Tartelette for pastry stalwarts such as flaky croissants, pains au chocolat, and almandines. Tartelette is also home to a popular “crookie” — a croissant baked with cookie dough on top.
Homa is proud that she and her pastry chefs and bakers, now a team of eight, are equally skilled at producing the classic viennoiseries as well as playful trending desserts and seasonal specials.
“We’re not a boring kitchen,” she chuckles. Homa has continued to offer custom decorated cakes and jokes that any day she is given carte blanche on a cake design is the best day of her life.
Through a busy first year of business, Homa credits a supportive neighbourhood and clientele, staff and her family with making it all a success. Her family, especially, has long supported a hobby that became a home business and then a bustling shop. Her grandfather opened the first bakery in his home province in Iran, “so maybe this runs in my DNA,” she muses.
Tartelette
175 Main St., Unit 7, Ottawa
tartelette.ca | @tartelette_bakerycafe
Halal Food Map
Yumna Arif began sharing her adventures with fi nding halal food in Ottawa after moving to the city from Pakistan and navigating a home that was no longer halal by default. “In Toronto and larger cities, there were plenty of people advertising halal restaurants online,” Arif says. “I wanted to fill that gap in Ottawa.”
She created the account Halal Foodie Ottawa on Instagram in 2017. Initially, she used the account to organize in-person gatherings to connect with other newcomers to Ottawa. Once the pandemic hit, she shifted her focus to support restaurants by spreading the word about their offerings online. Now, she has almost 30,000 followers on Instagram, and just under 10,000 on TikTok.
Restaurants have started reaching out to her about collaborations, and Arif visits each business herself before she makes a recommendation. Her page features everything from where to find halal meat pies to high tea, birria tacos and smash burgers. As long as it’s halal, “I’m here for you, basically,” Arif says. “Especially if it’s something I haven’t tried before, or something unique,” she continues, saying that she likes to put herself back in the mindset of being new to the area and not knowing where to look for fun places to eat out. “Is this something that I would have liked to know about?” she asks herself
Though Arif is the one-woman show behind her account, her husband is frequently recognized when they are out on the town as she often films him across the table on their culinary adventures.
“We’re kind of introverts,” she says, “but when people recognize us and say they found our page helpful, that’s always a very nice feeling.”
Halal Foodie Ottawa
@halalgirls613
Worms for Waste
Since starting The Box of Life in 2019, Akil Mesiwala has been setting Ottawans up with Worm Studios for stress- and mess free vermicomposting at home.
Now he’s hoping that the concept catches on with business owners, too. The municipality does not off er commercial green bin pickups, so if businesses want to divert their organic waste from the landfill, they have to pay a private company. “Instead of paying to get it taken away, they can deal with it themselves on-site,” Mesiwala explains.
“Our business model is really to “set and forget” for our clients,” Mesiwala continues, noting that with quick training businesses can begin feeding their food scraps to their worm houses for composting. The resulting worm castings can be sold as a natural fertilizer, creating what Mesiwala refers to as a micro-circular economy.
Moo Shu Ice Cream and Arlington Five were early adopters of The Box of Life for their businesses. Mesiwala posits that vermicomposting is a great staff engagement tool as well as a way to reduce waste.
“Just like tending to a garden, it’s grounding,” Mesiwala explains, “it can help employees feel less stress and feel more connected to their workplace.”
There aren’t many requirements for establishing The Box of Life for businesses; ideally there is at least four square feet of space and a temperature-controlled environment. “It only takes fi ve minutes [for feeding], but it’s fun, so it’s OK if it ends up taking longer,” he says, laughing.
The Box of Life
@the.box.of.life | theboxoflife.com
Un Bistro à Wakefield
Isabelle Larocque is drawing on the flavours of Provence at her bistroquet in her hometown of Wakefield, Que. Larocque completed her culinary training in Ottawa before working in the south of France. The pandemic brought her back to the Ottawa region; she worked in the kitchen at North & Navy and as the head chef at La Bottega in the ByWard Market before deciding to pursue her own vision.
“I’ve always wanted to open my own restaurant and I’ve had a lot of mentors guiding me toward how to do so,” Larocque says. She took possession of the space in Wakefield and opened isabelle bistroquet just one month later, in June.
She’s felt a warm welcome in the village and has been working with local ingredients to create a menu that she describes as simple but decadent. A recent favourite dish was a salted brioche toast, topped with poached Matane shrimp in butter, finished with dill and parsley from a nearby farm, accompanied by a saffron aioli.
The restaurant seats 15, with another 15 on the patio when the weather permits. There will be a private dining room on the second floor that Larocque plans to make available for 10 people. In the winter, Larocque is hoping to create an après ski program, with a fire pit and flavours reminiscent of dishes from Alsace and the Alps.
For the time being, she doesn’t have any staff so she is working by herself, which reminds her of the small kitchens in the French countryside, where the food is top notch, but the atmosphere is nonchalant.
“It’s just one person [serving you], who is very passionate,” she explains. “My hope and dream is to be an old lady still doing this.”
Isabelle Bistroquet
28 Chemin de la Vall. de Wakefield, Wakefield, Que.
isabellebistroquet.com | @isabelle.bistroquet
Parkdale Food Centre + Taste of Wellington
Since 2022, October 5th has been known as the Right to Food Day in Ottawa, thanks to the Parkdale Food Centre’s (PFC) advocacy to reduce food insecurity and hunger in the city. To mark the day, PFC will be hosting a block party on Saturday, October 5 from noon to 4 p.m. in Hintonburg with tours of its Grocery Program, family-friendly activities, games, live music and, of course, good food.
Taste of Wellington hits the streets on Saturday, September 21, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. During the festival, the unique and flavourful offerings of Hintonburg and Wellington Village will be on display. It's a day of sidewalk sales, delicious food samples (available for a fee or donation), children's activities, live music and entertainment. The event is in support of the Parkdale Food Centre.
