Gitanes
361-6 Elgin St., 613-562-0699,
gitanes.co
Open:
Tuesday to Saturday 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., closed Sunday and Monday
Prices:
appetizers $7 to $45, mains $22 to $70
Access:
restaurant is below street level, steps or long ramp to front door
As the cool kids like to say, the menu at Gitanes was lit.
Or rather, as a more literal adult would say, the menu, a large paper card filled with beguiling choices, was lit on fire last week after my dining companion allowed it to hover too close to our table’s tiny candle.
Our server was sympathetic. She told us this was roughly the eighth case of a menu catching fire since Gitanes opened in mid-September on Elgin Street, in a much renovated space where Oz Kafe, now in the ByWard Market, had been.
That’s the first warning I will share about Gitanes. Don’t set your menu on fire.
The second warning: At Gitanes, which broadly speaking is a French-inspired restaurant, the food can be very rich. Both the French onion soup and the bordelaise sauce that comes with the massive O’Brien Farms ribeye are enriched with bone marrow. There’s a puddle of foie gras mousse beside the truffle-sauced chicken and even foie gras incorporated, quite subtly, into the ice cream sundae.
Of course, foie gras and truffles aren’t cheap. Accordingly, my third warning is that it will help you at Gitanes if you are rich or at least enjoy feeling rich. It is a youthful, casual and fun place, but also a splurge if you want to do more than nibble on some shrimp tartare ($10) and impeccably crisp, salted and herb-enhanced fries with aioli and ketchup ($8 for a generous portion).
Main courses can easily top $40 here. Seafood towers from the cold bar are $90 and $125, with a $90 supplement for caviar. For the most celebratory guests, Gitanes stocks 11 champagnes, including 2011 Pierre Peters “Les Chétillons” Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Brut at $355 a bottle.
But after all these caveats, I still recommend Gitanes, as long as you know what you’re in for.
After Thru, Alice and Gray Jay, it is the fourth very notable restaurant to open in Ottawa since the spring of this year. They are all different. Gitanes, perhaps apropos of being on Elgin Street, is less high-minded than the others. But, at its best, Gitanes is more about food as a direct, carnal pleasure as well as a sophisticated indulgence.
That was our conclusion as we extracted briny, potent Rimouski-raised sea urchin from their shells (two for $25) and smeared the orange ambrosia (gonads, yes I know) on some miniature miso-buttered English muffins. For umami overload, the iced platter also contained some uni mayo, which by itself made our eyes widen.
Stored wrong or out of the water too long, sea urchin is really off-putting and tastes of iodine. I’ve had several bad uni experiences at restaurants, but Gitanes’ uni could not have been more fresh and mind-altering.
I don’t have the budget to have tried all 11 items from the cold seafood bar, which is out front at Gitanes, separate from the kitchen, but I’ll be saving up for snow crab and lobster.
I did try some of the more composed raw-fish items and they were very good, if not as transcendental as the admittedly acquired taste of uni. Slabs of mackerel ($14) were unctuous and earthy, perked by fermented rhubarb, hazelnut and serrano chiles and sitting in a bright sauce of fermented plum and ponzu. Tuna tartare ($20) was well-made — finely chopped, clean and mild of taste and elevated by the right amount of plum gelée, crème fraîche and bits of crisped sunchoke.
Beef tartare ($20), while not so appetizing-looking, was simple and fine, its meat tucked under a layer of bigger sunchoke crisps. I’m used to a bit more acid in my tartares, but in my experience, that’s not how Gitanes rolls.
Celery root and apple — a classic pairing — starred in a lower-key but satisfying salad ($16). The vegetable and fruit were crisp and thinly sliced, bolstered by a creamy dressing that had the nuttiness of brown butter going for it, while bits of cheddar added their pop to the dish.
That menu that nearly went up in flames boasts 16 appetizers and vegetable dishes, but we skipped intriguing options such as escargots, that French onion soup and duck boudin sausage to tuck into some of the big-money mains (as opposed to the cheaper burger or steak frites).
A massive chicken breast received a deluxe treatment ($47). It was blissfully moist after being cooked sous vide and then roasted, and its truffled sauce, cinnamon cap mushrooms and foie gras mousse made for an opulently rich main, offset only by the tangy hint of fermented elderberry.
On my second visit, a buddy and I split the uber-beefy O’Brien Farms 16-ounce ribeye ($70), also showered with mushrooms plus some cippolinis, and served with the dark, beefy-in-its-own right, marrow-infused bordelaise. We felt like the world’s most decadent carnivores.
Even more tongue-catching and pleasing was the Sichuan-peppercorn-perked sauce with Gitanes’ dry-aged duck breast ($40) that had a bit of extra funk to it, and was tender, if a touch overdone.
Flawless was the big chunk of roasted halibut ($47) with stewed beans, a quenelle of herby sauce, with clams and chanterelles along for the ride.
The sundae made with foie gras ice cream ($19) was very creamy and barely liver-y, but it delivered a wave of sweet, boozy excess, with its rum-spiked bananas Foster sauce and bourbon-soaked cherry.
Restrained by comparison was a dark, smooth slice of chocolate tart ($10) covered with ground cherries.
Service was always personable, assured and knowledgeable about the food and beverages, significantly adding to our enjoyment.
The restaurant seats about 50 people in distinctly different spaces. I’ve sat twice at the back, near the kitchen, in an area with a cellar-y feel under exposed ducts where we wished the very diverse piped-in music was somewhat quieter and the lights were a little brighter. That said, our space was softened by an area graced by sofa seating for about eight, not that we were that uncomfortable in our curvy moulded plastic chairs.
I envied the people at the front of the restaurant, who could watch the cook at the raw bar station. I really envied the folks at the chef’s table right in the kitchen, treating themselves to the $95-per-person tasting menu. There’s also a darker lounge-y bar area with a few tables.
Gitanes is co-owned by Nader Salib, who also has a stake in Common Eatery, a block south on Elgin Street. His co-owner is American chef Luke Reyes, who splits his time between Los Angeles and Ottawa.
Chef de cuisine Mitch Lacombe definitely deserves kudos. Having been the chef de cuisine at Restaurant E18hteen and sous chef at Riviera, Lacombe is no stranger to high-end dishes that smack of luxury. He is definitely helping to rocket Gitanes into the elite company of his previous kitchens.
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