Dining Out: Duna Bistro in Blackburn Hamlet serves sprawling schnitzels and delightful dumplings

Duna Bistro
2518 Innes Rd., 613-808-8346, dunabistro.com
Open: Monday to Saturday noon to 8 p.m., closed Sunday
Prices: main dishes $15 to $24
Access: no steps to front door or washroom

I’ve never knowingly reviewed a restaurant with an uncertain future. But in the case of Duna Bistro, I’ll make an exception.

For this tiny, takeout-oriented eatery in Blackburn Hamlet, the lease will be up at the end of June, in advance of condos replacing its little strip mall. The business, run by chef-owner Paul Simon, will have to move, although he’d already thought of doing just that, albeit with less urgency. 

Fans of traditional Central and Eastern European food should hope that Duna Bistro, which takes its name from the Hungarian word for the Danube River, finds its new home close to them. While I’m told that Kanata-based and even Gatineau-based schnitzel fans have returned from Duna Bistro with a pizza box or two loaded with flattened, massive pork cutlets, Simon hopes that relocating will allow him to open a full-fledged restaurant with comfy seating, a liquor licence, and maybe even live music.

A more expansive Duna Bistro, particularly if it moved west, would help fill a near-vacant niche, especially with those veteran European restaurants the Lindenhof and New Dubrovnik shuttered for some years. By my reckoning, only the fancier Das Lokal in Lowertown and the more proletarian Schnitzel Works on Cyrville Road fly the culinary flag for meaty German/Austrian fare. 

For now, Duna Bistro seats just 11 at the counters along its perimeter. Simon, a Canadian of Hungarian descent, does the bulk of the cooking. The 49-year-old is self-taught in the kitchen, informed by his mother’s and grandmother’s cooking, and by what he ate during the nearly two decades he spent working in the financial sector in Central Europe before he moved to Ottawa for familial reasons in 2012. 

In the last few weeks, I’ve had two hearty, homey and satisfying meals at Duna Bistro while staring out the window at Innes Road. Like most of Simon’s customers, I also brought home a few dishes, wanting to see if they would significantly degrade after 20 minutes in the car.

The star attraction here, pork schnitzel, has lived up to its billing. At $17 for a regular serving and $24 for a large one, the specialty might seem steeply priced. But both include a starchy side, and moreover, the over-sized schnitzels have tasted admirably hand-crafted, as if the Viennese grandmother I never had had made it.

Here, better quality pork loin has been pounded — “with love,” Duna’s website says — and then breaded and panfried. Their crispness and tenderness were finely finished with a squeeze of lemon to cut their richness. Sauce fans could add dollops of mushroom-based jaeger sauce for $4, although these schnitzels, which sprawled across their plates, were so good on their own that I thought sauce wasn’t needed.  

clockwise from bottom left, schnitzel, jaeger sauce, two cabbage rolls, and spaetzle at Duna Bistro

With the three-quarter-pound large schnitzel ($24) sampled at our first visit to Duna came a bowl of toothsome, made-that-morning spaetzle, fortified with bits of bacon and caramelized onions. Simon threw in a bowl of homemade sauerkraut, which was refreshingly acidic and nicely seasoned so as to taste of more than fermented cabbage.

Sauerkraut and cole slaw at Duna Bistro

We also had a plate of luscious pelmeni ($15) — juicy Russian dumplings stuffed delectably with chicken and veal and served with sour cream and caramelized onions.  

Pelmeni at Duna Bistro

At a second visit, we tried not only another well-made schnitzel but also a plate of long-cooked cabbage rolls ($15), which featured smooth, mellow stuffings of ground pork and rice and which sat in a generous puddle of sauce made with not just tomato but also red pepper. Ten pierogies stuffed with cheddar and potato, boiled and then fried in duck fat ($17) — apparently as per Wayne Gretzky’s favourite preparation — were suitably indulgent.

Cabbage rolls at Duna Bistro

Cheese and potato pierogies fried in duck fat at Duna Bistro

We had wanted to try Simon’s goulash too at lunch, but what goulash he had was still cooking, because a huge order the previous night had emptied his fridge of that beefy stew.  This week, I took home a container of goulash ($17), brimming with tender beef in a tangy, salty gravy on one side and dense mashed potatoes on the other. In its tin, the goulash wasn’t going to win any beauty contests. But once removed, and even eaten again the next day at lunch, the hearty, savoury stew was as warming and comforting as you could wish for.

Goulash with mashed potatoes, spaetzle and shredded beets at Duna Bistro

I also brought a dozen pierogies ($15) stuffed with pork (potato-cheese and sauerkraut-mushroom stuffings are also available), which surpassed the boiled Slavic dumplings I’ve eaten in the past, but came second in my heart after those cheesy, crisp-seared pierogies. 

Pork-filled pierogies with caramelized onions, double-smoked bacon and sour cream from Duna Bistro

There are no desserts on Duna Bistro’s menu. However, at one lunch there was a tray of simple cookies and some slices of lavish chocolate biscuit cake on one the eatery’s counters, both made by one of Simon’s workers. We bought and shared a slice of the superb cake, which had been made for a special occasion, and were each gifted a cookie.

As humble as Duna Bistro is, Simon is a cordial host who clearly takes quiet pride in his no-shortcuts food and in pleasing customers. He’s also capable of cooking dishes, such as borscht and chicken parikash, beyond what’s listed on the current menu, which has been compacted while business at this location is winding down. Duna’s website does offers a to-go Easter dinner for this weekend, built around a roasted lamb leg.

Simon told me this week that when he lived in Budapest, he was so crazy about the schnitzel at a certain Viennese restaurant that he would sometimes drive more than two hours to have some of it for lunch. “I used to adore that place,” he said.