Restaurant Report: Celebrated chef Jonathan Gushue opens ‘The Gate’

Read Also: 10 more can’t-miss Ontario restaurants for wine lovers

“The kitchen is inspiring,” she says. “When you come in the door, you’ll feel the vibe of the chefs.”

For the first little while, The Gate will open only for dinner, but they are looking to a lunch trade soon as well. The menu will be 12–18 items, veg forward and suitable for sharing by the active customers that live, work and play in the region, Gushue says. And, of course, anyone else venturing out for a new and exciting dining experience.

“We’ve structured the menu in a way that it can be shared,” he says. “And the options are such that our guests can pop in, grab a quick bite and then get back to the bike trails or ski hills.”

Wines will be Mediterranean but with a showcasing of Ontario selections when they complement the menu – and they’re value-driven too.

Surrounded by farmland and producers, Gushue describes the geographic location with its rapidly energizing food scene as perfect for “sense-of-place dining.” Langdon Hall alumnus and former Noma chef de partie Phil De Montbrun is executive chef.

“It’s a Mediterranean-focused menu but with our unique perspective,” says De Montbrun. “You’ll recognize the ingredients, but we’re going to think about them differently than you typically see. We want to cook great food and create great experiences.”

The Gate partners say the Grey Highlands area is connected to each other and community driven, and they are engaging with that entire community.

“We’re opening to meet un-met needs,” says Gushue. “We want to add to the Grey Highlands experience.”

The latest vegan hot spot is Ottawa’s ‘St. Elsewhere’

Following Three’s Company snack bar, St. Elsewhere is the second restaurant foray for partners chef Tyler Da Silva, Ian Wilson and Tam Auafua, all life-long industry professionals.

Having opened this past October, the plant-based 60-seat restaurant got its inspiration from a few tofu and veggie dishes that were popular on the Three’s Company menu.

“I don’t eat it often, but I really do love cooking this type of food,” Da Silva says. “We started asking ourselves, ‘Where do vegans go for a nice dinner and a bottle of wine in Ottawa?’ There was a void to fill,” Da Silva says.

St. Elsewhere is ‘serving something that is just slightly different than somewhere else.’ (Photo by Gumption Studios)

They found a location in Chinatown and built out a menu that is unique flavours and inventive dishes in the plant-based mode, but without what Da Silva describes as the “gimmickry.”

“It’s a middle ground for prices and what we call refined approachable,” he says. “Cozy, bright colours and a fun place to enjoy a bottle of wine and a good plant-based meal. We’re only six weeks in, but we’re having a lot of fun.”

As for the names, the Three’s Company television theme says, “Come and knock on our door/We’ve been waiting for you,” notes Da Silva. “So St. Elsewhere is a lyric that Ian heard in hip hop song, so it’s on theme. We’re serving something that is just slightly different than somewhere else. Ottawa doesn’t have that,” says Da Silva.

New Ottawa resto-wine bar Buvette Daphnée is ‘unabashedly Quebecois rooted’

Buvette Daphnée opened September 1 in Ottawa’s ByWard Market – it’s the new 45-seat post-pandemic restaurant from co-owners chef Dominique Dufour and Jordan Holley (Daphnée is the name of his grandmother).

Calling it a “Quebec wine bar,” the venue takes over from Dufours’ sadly shuttered Gray Jay which opened in 2019 – and unfortunately just ahead of the Covid-19 cataclysm.

Buvette Daphnée is Rooted in Quebcois.

You could call a buvette a “watering hole,” but that doesn’t do justice to Dufour’s creton croquettes, swordfish crudo with eel, morels and duck and a wine list with a strong Canadian representation, according to Dufour. A Montrealer who attended George Brown for culinary, Dufour has lived and cooked across Canada, including Yukon.

“Daphnée is the neighbourhood place you go after work, to meet friends or celebrate a birthday,” she says.

Sharing plates and small bites are the focus of the seasonal, Ottawa Valley-sourced local menu and producers – food and wine – who share Buvette’s philosophy of being stewards of sustainability and “growing food for the future.” But it is also unabashedly a Quebecois focus that is “rooted” in Dufour’s childhood food memories and those of her colleague and sommelier Nicolas Leduc. For his part, Leduc has a wine list drawing on Canadian producers and what Dufour calls the “gorgeous work” currently being done here.

“It’s vastly under-represented. We have Quebec wines, east coast wines and some beautiful wines produced in the Okanagan Valley as well as Prince Edward County and Niagara.”

The ByWard Market location is a new one for Dufour, and she’s looking forward to engaging with its vibrancy. “It’s a very distinctive and bustling neighbourhood. It’s all very new, but it’s all been very positive. Overwhelming too!”

Quick and casual: ‘Popina Canteen’, Granville Island, B.C.

Serial restaurateur Robert Belcham closed his long-standing Campagnolo restaurant during Covid-19 and with Angus An and Hamid Salimian opened Popina Canteen on Granville Island shortly thereafter.

A popina is an ancient Roman wine bar – a speakeasy for the common Roman – but this one is relatively new and made of three shipping containers with bar service and a menu with quality local and seasonal ingredients. And of course some great Okanagan wines.

“It’s right on False Creek. We’re about high-quality food done faster and better,” Belcham says. “Best burgers, best lobster rolls, best fried chicken, best ice cream. We think. We take fine-dining techniques and apply them to quick casual.”

Popina Canteen takes fine-dining techniques and applies them to quick casual.

Belcham et al. are planning to expand the Popina brand into the new year and will head outside Granville Island – and perhaps internationally into Seattle. “We’ve built Popina to be an adaptable multi-unit operation depending on the space and concept. Opening a Popina wine bar in Kelowna is our dream.”

They have organized Cooks Camp, a two-day hospitality conference at North Arm Farm in Pemberton, about two hours north of Vancouver, for next September, 2024.

“The conference aims to help improve the lives of people working in the hospitality industry. It will get people out of their silos. We will come together to cook, break bread and inspire,” Belcham says.

Keep up with the latest Canadian restaurant news: Subscribe to our free Vine & Dine Newsletter!

If you own a restaurant, or are in the industry, and you have news you’d like to share with us, please email our editorial staff at editorial@vineroutes.com and your restaurant could be featured.