Jasper
18 Beechwood Ave. 613-747-3456, jasperottawa.com
Open: Monday and Tuesday 4 p.m. to 1 a.m., Wednesday to Friday 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 1 a.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to midnight, Sunday 10 a.m. to 1 a.m.
Prices: small plates $6 to $21, mains $16 to $49
Access: wheelchair ramp to front door
It takes a certain amount of chutzpah for chefs to make their restaurants synonymous with themselves. Think of star chef Daniel Boulud with his New York restaurants Daniel and Café Boulud. In Ottawa some years ago, chef John Taylor made a point of rebranding Domus Café as John Taylor at Domus Café.
Now, in New Edinburgh, we have the recently opened restaurant Jasper, which prompts the question, “Jasper, who?”
It turns out that the restaurant’s name alludes to its chef and co-owner, Gabe Roberge, whose middle name is Jasper. You could be forgiven for asking at this point, “Gabe Roberge, who?” But Jasper, the chef, may well be poised to make a name for himself through Jasper, the restaurant.
Roberge is just 20, and essentially self-taught when it comes to cooking. He has worked in the kitchens of El Camino, Oz Kafe and Sidedoor, and he oversaw the food at Tavern on the Hill, which opened in 2017 and became known for its gourmet hot dogs. Tavern on the Hill’s owner is Ottawa entrepreneur Andre Schad, who is a partner with Roberge in Jasper.
Schad and Roberge opened the restaurant in early November, in the space where the Beechwood Gastropub had been before it shut down last August.
Like the gastropub, Jasper stresses a from-scratch, farm-to-table approach to Canadian-inspired small plates and heartier fare. (“Jasper,” then, also refers to the quintessentially Canadian outdoors of Jasper in Alberta, Roberge said last week.) Roberge also considers himself a keen experimenter in the kitchen, and the evidence can be seen and tasted in trendy transformations such as gels, powders and foams that appear on plates. Roberge also seems interested in Nordic and boreal touches, such as wild moss in the beef tartare or a pine branch beside the scallops.
The most immediate difference between Jasper and its predecessor has to do with a new, brighter look and feel. It’s striking what mustard-y banquettes and walls, an infusion of chandeliers, and some strategically placed bundles of herbs and jars of pickled goods have done to the dining room, which otherwise has retained its length of barn board along its longest wall, opposite its TV screen-equipped bar.
In addition to being brighter, the room also struck us as louder — at least during our Friday happy-hour visit last month when the room’s front half was packed. If you want to converse without straining at Jasper, you will hopefully encounter less of a ruckus there. We even found that the din that night got in the way of our efforts to take in all of the stimulations of Roberge’s ambitious cooking, such as the subtle aromas of atomized thyme.
We’ve eaten most of the items on Roberge’s menu. A common thread has been the thoughtfulness of all his dishes in terms of their components and presentation. When Roberge got everything on a plate working, his successes delivered big satisfactions.
But other dishes were more unevenly crafted or less impressive than the menu’s descriptions made them out to be. Those lapses were all the more irksome because the prices at Jasper can seem high.
What worked best for us at Jasper? We couldn’t fault warm, simple rounds of bannock flatbread ($4 for four), topped with bacon-enriched butter. The kitchen’s cauliflower dish ($20), while a little small to fit the bill as a vegetarian main course, packed a main’s worth of flavours, from the smokiness Roberge added to the florets to the earthiness of the dish’s cashew smear to the bracing brightness of some acidic greens and the dusting of nutritional yeast on the plate.
Bannock with bacon butter at Jasper
Sage smoked cauliflower at Jasper restaurant
For the menu’s heftiest prices, Jasper’s meatiest and most filling dishes — some slide-off-the-bone wild boar ribs ($35) and slabs of ribeye steak ($49) from O’Brien Farms near Greely — were tender, flavourful and well-sauced.
Ribeye steak at Jasper
Wild boar ribs at Jasper
Two sandwiches — a lobster roll ($16) and a two-patty, nicely crusted “smash” burger ($19) — were ample and well-made. Their fries on the side, however, were more ordinary.
Smash burger at Jasper
Lobster roll at Jasper
There was a similar shortcoming with otherwise well-made beef tartare ($21), in that the plate’s “ketchup chips” were just oily and soggy, and not much good for picking up the meat on the plate.
Beef tartare at Jasper
Two other small plates — one that featured too-few slices of smoked duck breast ($15) and another built around seared scallops ($19) — featured well-prepared main elements that pointed to aptitudes in the kitchen, while récherché additions such as sea asparagus powder and pickled sea asparagus with the scallops, and arugula emulsion with the duck, added interest. That said, these creations were also a little haphazardly plated and too casually made. The wild rice porridge with the scallops had just slipped into mushiness, for example.
Duck breast small plate at Jasper
Scallops at Jasper
Perhaps the best-looking of Roberge’s dishes was his salmon main course ($23), with its artfully arranged, multi-coloured blobs of various vegetable purées. But too much of the food on the plate struck us as under-seasoned — and even jarringly so, given how closer to the mark other dishes were in that department.
Salmon at Jasper
If only Roberge’s “silly chicken” dish ($27) had been as pleasing as it was whimsical. Its white meat was too dry, while the foie gras tucked into the dish had less impact than a luxury item should have had.
“Silly chicken” at Jasper
Desserts here were more homey than the plates that had preceded them, ending meals on simple, memorable notes. A citrus-poached pear ($9) was toothsome and refreshing, although the candied nuts were over-sugared and a little clunky. A tart of haskap berry jam and caramel ($11) was small but potent, and it made bit players of the chocolate mousse and macaron on the dish. Sugar pie ($11) topped with raspberry jam was fine, although the foie gras that we were told had been worked into the crust scarcely registered for us.
Poached pear at Jasper
Haskap caramel tart at Jasper
Sugar Pie at Jasper
The drinks menu gives top billing to creative cocktails starting at $14 and eight craft beers on tap.
For all the niggles above, the overall impression I have of Jasper remains a positive one. Roberge is an evident talent, and I liked the vision and creativity that he brings to his food. While there are some kinks to iron out, with some good luck and business, Jasper will hopefully afford its namesake the opportunity to fulfill his potential.