CapitalDining.ca

Le Café du Musée has one of the finest views of any restaurant in the region. Gaze out its rounded wall of windows and you feast on the city - from the red roof of the Ottawa New Edinburgh Club to the Bank of Canada and everything in between: Parliament Hill with its newly unwrapped library, the icy cliffs that tumble into the snow covered river. Over there, the twin spirals of the Cathedral, the National Gallery, the Chateau Laurier, the old train station, the mouth of the Rideau Canal, the ugly, stump-topped US embassy, and beneath you, at the foot of this restaurant, the grounds of this magnificent museum. The Canadian Museum of Civilization is the jewel in the crown of our national museums, an architectural marvel and the most visited museum in the country. But remove the view and there's not much left. Not much that rises above mediocre on the plate, and not much of a room. Tables are bare and wobbly. Cutlery is of cafeteria quality, rolled in a napkin. Banquet size wine glasses are spotted. High chairs and coffee carafes are stored in the aisle. The carpet is tired. The walls are all but empty. Service matches the stemware and plate ware: it's all pretty much of cafeteria quality.

Indeed, remove the visual clues from the windows and you could be in any dining room in any city in any country. That's unfortunate. When the Canadian Museum of Civilization hired Chef Georges Laurier in June 2007, I had high hopes that there was finally going to be a commitment made to take its fine dining restaurant out of the doldrums, making it worthy not only of its situation and superb setting, but also of the considerable abilities and talents of its new executive chef.

Georges Laurier is brilliant. During its day, his restaurant - Laurier sur Montcalm - was a treasure. I miss it still. But seven months after his arrival Le Café du Musée remains lackluster. And his talent is likely put into the big banquets. I wouldn't know. I only know there precious little evidence of it on any plate I sampled here over three lunches. I won't bore you long with the details of the food. None of it is dreadful, but neither does any of it sing. The baguette is very fresh but very Wonder Bread; a cornmeal crusted pickerel is overcooked, the corn and mushroom fritters are doughy. We send the bison shank back to the kitchen, as it is inedibly tough; the hot smoked mackerel pizza that arrives as a replacement, (with goat cheese and pine nuts) is truly dreadful. Better bets: other than the soggy crab claw garnish, the lobster bisque is quite fine, as is the duck confit, though the "risotto" on which it rests is not a proper risotto and the root vegetables are undercooked. There's a chicken stew that's tasty and rustic, but it sure looks silly on its white, doilied plate and the seafood chowder has a nice texture and flavour but a marked paucity of seafood and too many potato skins. The very best of the bunch is the mushroom stuffed pasta with King Eryngii mushrooms and a truffle oil boosted cream sauce.

Service is slapdash and the tiny wine list is dismal. Where are the great Canadian wines, oh great Canadian national museum? When will someone please take this space, renovate it, update it, pay some attention to it, hire some crackerjack servers, get some good advice on the wine list, slap on some white tablecloths and let one of the region's best chefs strut his stuff? And then open for dinner. I'd love to come back to feast on the view and the food. This might have been another report of another mediocre restaurant, but I've just returned from a remarkable meal at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto. I also recall an equally artful experience at the ROM dining room a few years before, and certainly there are many other cities with extraordinary museum restaurants. But I find myself embarrassed by ours. This could be one of the great destination restaurants of this region: a go-to place for out of town guests; a restaurant for pre- and post-Winterluding. And what a spot to feast on the fireworks on Canada Day! So instead, I lament, tinged with a certain grumpiness, about a space that has so much potential in terms of its architecture, its venue and its chef, but is, in its present condition, a wonderful opportunity missed.

Cuisine: International
Cost: $$: starters, $6 to $14; main dishes, $12 to $19

Hours: Daily in summer for lunch and brunch, closed Monday and Saturday during winter months

Features: Patio dining.
Accessibility: Fully accessible.

100 Laurier St., Gatineau, QC
819-776-7009

My first taste of chef Trish Donaldson's food at the Black Cat Café came as a trio of freebies: a slice of her wonderful "angry bread" (reddened with chillies and paprika); a dish of her spicy orange-infused olives; and a buttery nugget of monkfish, dredged in Indian spices on a perky, sandy Bolognese with dill and saffron oil in green dribs and orange drabs on the plate. She called it her "surf and turf" amuse bouche.

We call it fun. And very tasty.

Which sums up dinner here.

Donaldson's dishes start with solid ingredients and into their assembly is injected innovation, inspiration and an impish sense of humour. The flavour combinations are solid and the presentation is stylish.

Donaldson worked under René Rodriguez at the Black Cat until he left for the executive chef job at Luxe Bistro (after Derek Benitz left Luxe to open Benitz Bistro.)

Donaldson now runs the kitchen, while the restaurant is managed by sommelier Rémy Urquhart (son of Black Cat owner Richard Urquhart, who first opened the Café on Echo Drive in the nineteen eighties, and who now makes Toronto his home.) The original sign of the original Black Cat Café graces the walls of the Murray Street location, a small, intimate restaurant of pale-wood tables, molded black chairs, and clever, unfussy things on the walls. It is not a formal restaurant. If you are looking for white tablecloths to soften the blow of a sizable bill, you won't find it here. The atmosphere is very much the sort that permits dropping in for a glass of wine (from a very well managed, interesting list) and a single dish at the bar. (Which in turn reduces the bill.)

If the Senators are playing a home game, that single dish might be chicken wings. Donaldson has her way with wings most Tuesday nights. One such Tuesday we are treated to wings transformed by fat - cooked, cooled and sealed in duck fat - resulting in a silky, rich texture, the flavour enhanced with aromatic tea, and set on a bed of wide rice noodles perfumed with lime and black sesame seeds. They are as deliciously decadent as they come.

She likes tea, Trish does. Order scallops as a starter and they come with a cup of apple-cinnamon tea, deeply perfumed, meant to be enjoyed (and we do) with the seared scallops and the smooth apple butter on which they perch.

Tuna comes balanced on a skewer, crusted with coriander and sesame seed, set on a delicious miso-coconut mash strewn with coconut chips and served with a crunchy apple-celery root salad studded with black sesame seeds.

Noodles come in a wide bowl with a mess of good stuff: roasted red peppers, zucchini, eggplant, crunchy peanuts, shredded lime leaves, soft squares of tofu and chunks of steamed halibut. Pork medallions are paired with cumin-scented pickled apricots and sour cream blinis, served with a tiny celeriac salad. Thick, rare slabs of impeccable beef are set on a parsnip puré and come with a Yorkshire pudding with pulled oxtail and a wild mushroom in its hollow. Monkfish comes wrapped in bacon, set on wilted spinach and bathed in a foie gras broth. But my favourite main dish is the mint-infused pasta pouches (brilliant, perfectly cooked) filled with pulled lamb of deep lamb flavour, softened with ricotta cheese and braised carrots.

The trio of tuna both delights and disappoints. The tuna sashimi, cured in sake is terrific, set on an elaborate banana leaf canopy, and the clever canning jar of tuna confit with potato and pickled plums, is also quite good. The tuna hand rolls, however, suffer from mushy, glutinous rice, and somehow we missed the fact this was an all-cold dish. Didn't seem quite right for a main course in February. Where was the tea?

For dessert, we tuck into homemade doughnuts and Vietnamese coffee ice cream; warm rice pudding "brulée" with a passion fruit coulis; and fiendishly good handmade truffles, with coconut sorbet served in a banana leaf "box". Another night we enjoy cheeses in fine condition, served with smoked walnuts, apple butter and homemade breadsticks.

The choice of wines by the glass is not long, but Urquhart is a master of matching this food to his wines. Everything he suggests delights us. Dad should be proud.

Cuisine: Contemporary
Cost: $$$$: starters, $11 to $18; main dishes, $26 to $34

Hours: dinner only, Monday to Saturday

Accessibility: one step from street.

93 Murray Street, Ottawa, ON
613-241-2999
website

Some restaurants have life stories. The Black Cat Café's story is one of survival. Born 30 years ago on Echo Drive, it also thrived for a decade on Murray Street (plus a couple of stretches of thinking-through-its-next-move) before finding its way to Preston Street.

Along the journey, some gifted chefs made Black Cat purr -- notably René Rodriguez, Trish Donaldson, Keith Kowalski and Catherine Wise. Now we can add Steve Vardy to that list.

Vardy made his name in this city as opening chef at Beckta (2003-2006). After stints at Par-fyum and The Whalesbone Oyster House, he left Ottawa in 2007 for a resort project on Fogo Island. He's been wooed back to Ottawa by the BCB father-son team of Richard and Reme Urquhart while the project on The Rock runs behind schedule. Word is, Vardy's here for two years.

This latest Cat has made a slight surname adjustment (from Café to Bistro) and stretched in size since its ByWard Market incarnation. Spread out over two levels, rimmed with two walls of windows, the look is handsomely understated. High-gloss black tables and black rounded chairs cover dark wood floors. Whitewashed brick and lengths of mirror cover walls not covered with window. Window wrap around two walls. Other than the bar, which is its own slab of art, the only adornments of note are the flying-saucer resin lamps with leafy etchings that hang over the tables, upstairs and down. The one splash of colour in the space is provided by brandied orange booths on the upper level. A gas fireplace set in a cocoon of wood warms that upper room.

There will always be "better" tables in any restaurant and restaurants that show quite differently in summer than in winter. In January you may have a different experience seated by the door on a 23-below night, with a view of the neon bank sign, than tucked into one of the upper booths with a view of the fireplace. I expect that, come June, when the sidewalk patio is open and leafed-in trees provide some bank protection, the Urquhart boys will field a lot fewer requests for the cosy tables by the fire.

But for now, the food will warm ya.

Vardy has assembled a slate of wintry comfort food -- heavy, meaty, rib-sticking fare -- though there are moments too of great delicacy. We began with one of those. A starter of white tuna from B.C., torched (flash seared), the pale pink fish sliced and sitting up naked, glistening along the length of a white plate. Around it, a disciplined garnish of halved grapes topped with thin rounds of jalapeno, crispy wisps of shallot and a confetti of purple basil shoots. Pretty, indeed, but also ethereal, gentle, and then an edge of Whoa-Nellie! when the jalapeno bites. I was most reluctant to share.

Lucky for me, my other mouth had the venison carpaccio. I lingered over this plate, too. The meat was gorgeous -- rich, supple, almost sweet, and the traditional beef-carpaccio garnish of Parmigiano was given a Canadian twist with aged cheddar and some zingy mustard.

In a third starter, roasted pears, pickled beets, blue cheese and almond praline gather together happily in what Vardy calls a winter salad.

Two main dishes I thought splendid -- the fennel-seed-crusted sweetbreads, creamy soft, but with a crisp exterior, topped with the beautiful Lion's-Mane mushrooms that look like January icicles, leeks and crisp chunks of yummy fatty bacon; and a perfectly cooked duck breast escorted with Black Mission Figs. But I found the chorizo sausages too assertive, too gamey for the scallops they were paired with, and Vardy's roast chicken, brined and smoked before roasting to crisp-juicy glory, was too forcefully truffle oiled. It's an elixir that, used in moderation, adds a rich, elusive note to a dish. Too much is ruination.

The kitchen struts its stuff for dessert. The crème brûlée is infused with cardamom, cinnamon and a vanilla bean and works better than sunshine to dispel winter. The lemon tart is strong and smooth, the short crust heavenly. Don't leave the Cat without a wedge of it.

There is a first-class wine list to match with this food. It allows ample choice, but isn't so so big to cause a quandary. And the BCB staff -- at least those I've encountered -- are well acquainted with what comes out of the kitchen and the cave.

We're glad the Cat came back.

Cuisine: Contemporary
Cost: $$$: Starters, $8 to $17; main dishes, $22 to $30

Hours: Open Tuesday to Saturday from 5 p.m.

Features: Fireplace dining, Patio dining, Wine list worth noting, Vegetarian options.
Accessibility: Fully accessible.

428 Preston St., Ottawa, ON
613-569-9998
website