Lowertown Brewery
73 York St., 613-722-1454, lowertownbrewery.ca
Open: Daily from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Prices: sandwiches $9.95, rotisserie chickens $11.95 to $22.95, butcher platters $15.95 to $49.95
Access: fully accessible
Young chefs move from kitchen to kitchen. It’s the way of the business. Still, one of the most striking shifts that I’ve seen has to be Kyle Mortimer-Proulx’s recent relocation.
The last time I met him was in mid-May, when he was the chef at the upscale vegan spot ZenKitchen. Then, days before ZenKitchen suddenly closed due to financial woes and Mortimer-Proulx found himself jobless, the young chef was visibly proud of a seasonal treat of morels, fiddleheads and asparagus, smiling about a delicious faux vegan sundae.
Now, the 29-year-old is chef at a ByWard Market eatery that you could call the anti-ZenKitchen. It’s large versus small, casual versus fancy, populist versus niche, and meat-heavy versus meat-free. Last week at Lowertown Brewery, Mortimer-Proulx hosted a “Pork Belly Throwdown,” the first in a series of monthly cook-offs, for himself and five other chefs.
Opened in mid-June, about two weeks before Mortimer-Proulx started there, Lowertown Brewery is a massive place of wood tables, unfinished concrete walls and overhead ductwork. It celebrates craft beer, nightly live music, sports on the TV screens and affordable carnivorism. It’s one of more than a dozen ByWard Market restaurants or bars owned by Ottawa Venues (also known as York Entertainment), and chef John Leung is the culinary director for all the company’s properties.
Still, the brewery touts Mortimer-Proulx’s culinary achievements, flanking its entrance with two plaques that announce his participation in November in Ottawa’s Gold Medal Plates competition — although Mortimer-Proulx was invited when he worked at ZenKitchen.
Plaques aside, the food at Lowertown Brewery is meant to comfort, not to win elite cooking contests. Its limited menu — developed by Leung, but tweaked by Mortimer-Proulx — is built around roast chicken and humble, prepared rather than cooked-to-order meats (beef brisket, corned beef, sausage and porchetta) available in sandwiches or not, perhaps preceded by a beer-friendly snack and accompanied by massive fries or a salad.
Butcher’s Platter (clockwise from top: corned beef, beef brisket, sausage and porchetta) at Lowertown Brewery.
Factor in a sweet, direct, glass-jarred dessert (cheesecake or a Nanaimo bar, for example) and four courses at the brewery might come to around $30 (beer excluded), or about half of the rough equivalent at ZenKitchen.
Cheesecake at Lowertown Brewery.
During my three visits, I’ve had some fine, noteworthy, slow-cooked meat. Corn beef and smoked brisket, in sandwiches and as part of the butcher’s platter, were sumptuous and full of flavour.
A smoked pork belly sandwich ($9.95) was a nice indulgence, even if perkier, more imaginative accompaniments than mayo, tomato and lettuce might have scored higher.
Pork Belly Sandwich plus Potato and Bacon Salad at Lowertown Brewery
These items strike me as Lowertown Brewery’s winners, along with the guilty pleasure of maple peanut candied bacon ($5.95 for four crisp, well-pressed strips) and flavourful, if messy, smoked chicken wings ($10.95).
A short-rib sandwich available as a special also delivered, and later I wondered if Mortimer-Proulx gets to step out of the box a bit more with his specials.
I’m running a limited special @LowertownOttawa today! Come try my smoked potted mackerel with green bean/pickled onion/tomato toss, crostini
— Kyle Proulx (@chef_kmp17) August 9, 2014
But in addition to the hits, there were letdowns and inconsistencies too.
Rotisserie chicken, while moist and tender, was disappointingly bland on two occasions, as part of that sharing platter and later within a sandwich. On both visits, the sauce that came with the chicken was of little help flavour-wise.
Roast chicken at Lowertown Brewery.
Porchetta was a winner in a sandwich, slathered in a fine, acerbic lemon mint sauce.
Porchetta Sandwich and Beef and Barley Soup at Lowertown Brewery
But on a previous visit, the slice of porchetta on the butcher’s platter was dry and tough.
Of the brewery’s side dishes ($3.95 for small portions, $6.95 for large, which is arguably closer to a medium), three salads registered as good but not great, with a tartly dressed kale salad best offsetting our meat fiesta, compared to a very bacony potato-and-bacon salad and an apple quinoa salad.
Kale Salad at Lowertown Brewery.
Soups (beef-and-barley, chicken) were meaty but nothing special, with broths that, while made-from-scratch, could have been more heartily flavoured.
During one visit, Vito Pilieci, the Citizen’s beer columnist tagged along and tried a flight of five brews. Some were made by Clocktower Brew Pub, which is in a partnership with Lowertown Brewery. The newspaper’s suds buff described them as accessible and straightforward, although one was off.
Service has been friendly and confident, but not always astute. One server overestimated the ability of a butcher’s platter and side dishes to fill the bellies at our table. Another server delivered chicken soup rather than beef and blamed the kitchen for not informing him of the switch that day.
Interviewed after I’d eaten there, Mortimer-Proulx told me a menu revamp is coming soon. Mortimer-Proulx said he hoped to add more of his “personal flavours” without changing the restaurant’s direction.
He added that he hopes to get the OK from Lowertown’s owners to begin serving a “secret menu” at a small chef’s bar to more discriminating customers. I have my fingers crossed, as what I heard sounded like the passion of a Gold Medal Plates invitee otherwise tasked with executing a more mainstream, high-volume mandate.
phum@ottawacitizen.com
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