CapitalDining.ca

Here's a wintry tale of woe. It was late last February; my third and (I had hoped) conclusive visit to Luxe Bistro under chef René Rodriguez. As I was settling the bill, it became clear that business that had been ongoing in a neighbouring booth was in fact the final interview of a new chef. The handshakes and parting words tipped me off that the fella who had just made me lunch (and two dinners before that) was quitting after less than a year of service. And this baby-faced, goateed, bald guy was moving in.

The new guy turned out to be Duane Keats, then sous chef at Brookstreet Hotel under executive chef Michael Blackie. Keats was being handed the Firestone Group's upscale ByWard Market steakhouse, and Rodriguez, I later learned, was leaving to set up his own restaurant, Navarra (reviewed in this space in September).

My report on Luxe-under-René, was now moot. That's the woeful part.

Ten months later, I'm back, seated in the corner booth, tasting Luxe-under-Keats. This is where the story takes a happy turn.

Duane Keats is Luxe's third chef since it opened in 2003. And though each chef (Derek Benitz and Rodriguez were the others) has had an effect on the menu, Luxe remains a French-style steakhouse with durable mainstays -- French onion soup, Bouillabaisse, steak-frites. Keats' strongest impression is on the page of daily additions in the colossal menu.

Many of the daily additions have Keats' time at Brookstreet Hotel written all over them. Note the equations: Golden beet + Lime + Goat Cheese soup (= lovely) and Free Form Short Rib Lasagne + Smoked Tomatoes + Buffalo Mozzarella + Seared Foie Gras (all delicious).

Meat rules here. At $38, the steak-frites better be damn good, and it is. The thin fries with their judicious salting and a pot of chive mayonnaise are regrettably great. The thick steak is well char-striped and well seasoned and cooked as rare as I ordered it. You can add vegetables to tote up to your vitamin intake. Or not.

The kitchen plays with threesomes. Giant prawns wrapped in wisps of potato, fried to crisp, served with a spicy mango relish + Sichuan salmon wrapped in leek + tuna sashimi with caperberries and a seaweed salad. This $20-trio could be a full meal, and may be one way to enjoy Luxe without breaking the bank before Christmas.

The gnocchi might be another way to go. The $29 price tag (for potato dumplings?!?) may seem insane, but they come with a hillock of lobster, the claw rising out of the centre of the dish. The gnocchi are very good, light, spongy and wildly rich in a gorgonzola cream sauce -- with roasted pine nuts, fresh sage, cubes of roasted pear and chunks of softened dried fig. Five bites and you're through. Take the rest to the office for lunch.

Keats can braise. His short ribs are divine. He smokes too. A breast of Mariposa duck benefits from a light smoking before it's roasted to pink, sliced and fanned over a thyme-flecked, walnut and blue cheese stuffed bread pudding, on a bed of lovely braised veg. The backyard flavour and the unctuous duck jus gently waft down as you fork it up. Very nice.

A bright white black cod is given a miso and maple glaze, served with fingerling potatoes and braised bok choy. Again, very nice.

Missteps? Not many. We find a butternut squash soup too sweet. A pyramid of potato, pistachio and duck confit wrapped in cabbage leaves arrives cold beside the splendid seared scallops in a beurre blanc. A crab cake is too salty, too dense, a bit on the rubbery side. For dessert, chocolate reigns. One of the better chocolate cakes of my life, served with vanilla gelato, or a trio dessert of smooth dark mousse, a brownie (with figs) and ball of chocolate sorbet, served with candied lemons and stewed cloudberries for arterial relief.

If chocolate seems a bit much, there's a good sweet potato cheesecake with shards of pecan brittle and a maple syrup sauce.

Luxe is a restaurant of considerable comfort (except, at times, for the noise level and the curious choice of thumping music during the dinner hour, in a room filled with mostly middle-aged men eating steak).

The service adds to the pleasure. Fetching women in not-much-black and handsome men in white shirts and jeans run the floor with professional ease, and speak with authority about both the wine list and food choices.

The wine list is managed by sommelier giant Neil Gowe, and has consistently won Spectator Awards of Excellence.

Luxe is not a bargain. But I like it. Keats can stay put, please.

Cuisine: French
Cost: $$$$: Starters, $8 to $18; main dishes, $18 (burger) to $50 (lobster pot pie) des

Hours: Daily for lunch and dinner; closed Sundays beginning in January

Features: Late dining, Patio dining, Wine list worth noting.
Accessibility: Steps to entrance..

47 York St., Ottawa, ON
613-241-8805
website

Olivea

Note: reservations accepted for groups of six or more

Ontario restaurants that are open only for the gentle months may have the pleasure of the bountiful harvest to work with, but if they have their heart in braised dishes, root vegetables and hearty soups, they need to have their doors open in December. The long slow roast doesn't sell well in July.

Stev George's first restaurant was open May to September in Gananoque. It was called Casa Bella (named for his eldest daughter Bella) and I was a fan. His new restaurant Olivea (inspired by a second daughter, Olivia, who must share her name with an olive in true second-born fashion) is a year-round operation, opened this past spring and located in Kingston. Its wall of windows overlooks the National Historic Site of City Hall, and its 200-year-old Market Square, now covered with an open-air skating rink.

George's December menu is stuffed with the big cosy flavours necessary for dining with a view of bundled gliders. As they circle the rink, we tuck into comfort dishes: frites with veal cheek stew and local cheese curds; chicken grilled under brick with salmoriglio, orecchiette with rapini and sausages, osso buco with gremolata.

A good portion of Olivea's Mediterranean-Italian menu focuses on small plates. Pasta dishes are offered in two portion sizes. You can browse through the menu, nibbling on this and that, or opt for a more conventional arrangement of starter and main.

Our grazing revealed confident and hearty dishes. The Sicilian snack called arancine are a trio of fried golf balls of porcini-studded risotto, breaded and fried, their centres gooey with oozing Fontina cheese, served with a warm, spicy and very fresh tomato salsa. Squid is very tender, perfectly grilled and served with a hot red chilli pepper sauce prettily mingled with a mild, rich aioli.

Gnocchi are a litmus taste for an Italian restaurant and Olivea's gnocchi are toothy, but also incredibly light, dressed beautifully with a ragu of veal cheeks.

The seafood is bountiful and in fine condition - shrimp, mussels, squid - in a spicy tomato sauce with basil, olives and capers, on a bed of linguine.

We order two sides (in the 'contorni' section of the menu) to go with our main dish of squashed chicken. The risotto is worth every penny of its $7 price tag. I should think there might be $7 worth of saffron threads imbedded in the pumpkin coloured rice. It is a fabulous soupy, toothy dish. I could eat vats of it. The grilled vegetables - eggplant, fennel, zucchini, peppers - are very well cooked, but unseasoned, a bit dull. The chicken al mattone (under brick) however, is nothing short of spectacular. Rubbed with oil, garlic, lemon, parsley, oregano, and red chilies, and cooked under the weight of a brick, the skin arrives beautifully bronzed, fragrant as all get out, piquant because of the chillies, and the flesh is utterly juicy. Very nice.

For dessert, a cool and classy panna cotta. Two quibbles. I've never liked a restaurant charging for bread. It just seems wrong. And surely olives at Olivea could be on the house too. I'm sure they're worth $2.50, but asking for it strikes me as a tad parsimonious.

Olivea doesn't accept reservations unless you're a group of six or more. That may be fine in July, when you can walk to another joint. But when you're cold and hungry from a long hard skate, it's critical to know your table is waiting.

Cuisine: Mediterranean
Cost: $$$: Starters, $2 to $16; pasta/main dishes, $6 to $22

Hours: Open for lunch/brunch and dinner daily

Accessibility: Step to entrance (ramp available) Washrooms in bas.

39 Brock Street, Kingston
613-547-5483
website

Much has been written over the years about the institution that is Mamma Teresa (some of it by me in this space) and certainly the walls speak up. Framed, signed photos of the power elite cover the vestibule and line the stairs that lead to the private rooms - those infamous upper lairs on the second floor - where legend tells us much of the nation's business has been conducted.

My dad used to fly up from Toronto from time to time, meeting other important men in the restaurant's "upper chamber." I remember asking him what he ate after one such meeting. I have no idea, was his reply. (Can you imagine?)

The power meals still happen, but it's the changes at Mamma's that have brought me back. The boss has gone. Guiliano Boselli (son of Teresa, who ran Mamma's for close to forty years) retired last spring, selling the business to two of his long time servers. Boselli was a presence, and much a part of the pleasure of Mamma's. A benevolent host, he led his happy flock to their tables, then wandered the room, attending to the business of the place, conferring his blessings, shaking hands, kissing cheeks. If you were not a Mamma regular, you might not notice Boselli's absence. And there are other constants. Long serving chef Rinaldo Falsetti is still in charge of the kitchen. The hierarchy of black vestured officiants still run the floor, as they always have - explaining the menu (sometimes impatiently to those who don't know it instinctively), scribbling, serving, pouring, bussing, fetching, each according to his station.

And though the upstairs has been spruced up a bit - smart new window treatments and a crafty paint job - the main floor is as it's always been. Rooms of utilitarian beauty, white cloaked tables spaced over a red carpet, and still those wicker laundry baskets that cover the hanging lightbulbs and the shelves of knickknacks - antique toys, tins, old bottles, olive oil, a collection of nutcrackers, plastic kindergarten food. Mamma's is all dressed up for Christmas these days, and she looks rather pretty.

The powerful still come. John Baird and his Blackberried entourage are at a corner table at one evening visit. Jean Chretien is having lunch with his grandson at another. They order off a menu that never seems to change and sheds little light - regulars might know what Linguine Giuliano involves, or Ravioli Sofia or Manicotti Gloria, but I am clueless.

Monsieur Chretien knows what he wants. Veal. So we order that too. If it's good enough for the Right Honourable, it's good enough for us.

When it arrives, it's good enough. Veal in a lemon butter sauce with spinach fettuccine. The meat is tender, the pasta is flavourful, nicely cooked and sauced, the portion is just right and it doesn't cost too much. What's not to like? It comes with a little dull salad and the cake of the day - a moist, homey vanilla cake with strawberry that won't win any awards for looks, but tastes perfectly fine.

Dinner could begin with Mamma's antipasti. It's a jumbled collection of hot and cold things curiously served on three plates. We don't ask questions, we just tuck in to crunchy garlic shrimp, a trio of grilled scallops and a tangle of very tender deep fried squid, served with lemon. Hot-cherry peppers are sliced and stuffed with proscuitto and fontina cheese. They are delicious. A third plate holds olives, cured meats and cheese, all tasty.

Soups are reliably homey, with a made-from-scratch goodness about them. I also like the house gnocchi - lovely little potato-flour dumplings. I like too the option of starter portions of pasta. The cannelloni appetizer could be a full meal.

We wish the eggplant parmigiana had a less soggy breading beneath the admirable tomato sauce. And we've had clumsy tortellini, the stuffing tumbling out of the stolidly thick pasta pouches; a risotto primavera that tasted like Rice-a-Roni (though the shrimp on top of the reddened pile are sweet and crunchy); and a pork tenderloin pounded flat and cooked to grim, served with cold figs and an array of stodgy vegetables.

But order carefully - soup and gnocchi, smelts, calamari, the house pasta, anything with shrimp (they're good here) and a veal dish - and Mamma's is a dependable bargain. Dinner for two with a simple wine can be as easy as $70. As Ottawa is increasingly scattered with designer restaurants and personality chefs, it can be a comfort to return to a moderately priced institution with very few gastronomic pretensions.

On my last visit, lo and behold, I'm led to my table by Mr Boselli, looking trim and rested. It turns out he still works part time, when things get busy. Plus ça change…

Cuisine: Italian
Cost: $$$: Starters, $8 to $14; pasta and main dishes, $19 to $40

Hours: Open for lunch, Monday to Friday; dinner daily

Features: Wine list worth noting.
Accessibility: Steps to entrance.

300 Somerset Street W.,
613-236-3023
website