Best restaurants in Ottawa
Updated Thursday, September 17
Ottawa punches above its size on food and most visitors never find out, because the good rooms are spread across four neighbourhoods rather than sitting on one strip.
This is a short list, not a ranking of everything. Each place links to its page where you can see how busy it is tonight and how long the wait is.
Book ahead, worth the occasion
These need a reservation, sometimes weeks out. Set menus, one seating, the kind of meal that is the whole evening.
Set modernist tasting menu, no substitutions. Book well ahead.
Canadian tasting menu on Preston. Small room, one seating a night.
Chef's counter built around fermentation. You watch the whole thing happen.
Tasting menus and a deep wine list. The Elgin Street special occasion room.
The rooms people actually take people to
Good food without the ceremony. You can get into most of these on a weeknight if you call.
Old bank hall on Sparks. Contemporary Canadian and a proper bar to wait at.
Northern Italian. If the tables are gone, stand at the cicchetti bar.
House made pasta and a raw bar. Loud and busy, worth the wait.
French cooking with Canadian ingredients, off the main Westboro strip.
Stone heritage room in the Market. Open later than most of its class.
Casual, all day, or late
Where you go when you did not plan anything, or when it is one in the morning.
All day room leaning on local produce. Long lunches turn into dinner here.
Tacos and a raw bar. Dark basement, late, no reservations at the bar.
The 2am shawarma most Ottawa nights end at. Cash is faster than the card machine.
Questions people ask
What food is Ottawa known for?
Shawarma more than anything else. Ottawa has an unusual number of shawarma shops for its size and they stay open very late. Beavertails and the ByWard Market food stalls are the tourist answer.
Where do you eat before a night out in Ottawa?
The ByWard Market if you are drinking in the Market afterwards, Elgin Street if you are staying on Elgin, and Preston or Somerset West if you want the better food and do not mind a short cab.
Do you need reservations in Ottawa?
For the tasting menu places, yes, often weeks ahead. For most other rooms a weeknight walk in is fine and a weekend one is a gamble. Check the live wait on each page before you go.
More Ottawa guides
Where people in Ottawa actually go out, by neighbourhood, with live crowd reports from people already there tonight.
Which Ottawa bars skew student, which skew late twenties and thirties, and which have a proper mixed crowd. With live crowd reports.
A bar worth going to in Ottawa on every night, Monday through Sunday, including the quiet nights. With live crowd reports.