When the Edmonton restaurant Bündok made enRoute magazine’s 2018 list of top new Canadian restaurants, writer Nancy Matsumoto singled out chef-owner Ryan Hotchkiss’s sea bream crudo, Parisienne gnocchi and citrus posset dessert for praise.
Those dishes plus several more from the Alberta native were served Wednesday night at 1 Elgin, the National Arts Centre’s restaurant, as Hotchkiss began his stint as the NAC’s second resident chef of the 2019-2020 season.
About 90 people attended the ticketed five-course dinner, which previewed some of Hotchkiss’s rooted but refined dishes that will be on the menu at 1 Elgin for the next two months.
The goal of the residency program, which launched last fall with the tenure of Indigenous chef Rich Francis, is to give up-and-coming Canadian chefs a national platform to show off their art, said Nelson Borges, the NAC’s general manager of food and beverage. The NAC’s website will display recipes, interviews and other content having to do with its resident chefs. At 1 Elgin, the production of Hotchkiss’s dishes, which normally emerge from Bündok’s modest kitchen for a maximum of 37 guests, will have to scale up to be made for as many as 200 diners wanting a meal before a showtime at Southam Hall.
Wednesday night’s dinner was more leisurely, punctuated by explanatory words from NAC executive chef Kenton Leier and Hotchkiss, whose actual stay in Ottawa will last only five days, after which Leier’s team will turn out the Edmontonian’s dishes without their creator’s guidance. Also behind the NAC’s podium was Marcel Morgenstern, a representative from Niagara’s Pondview Estate Winery, which supplied bottles of its Bella Terra family of wines with each course.
Dinner began with the sea bream crudo, which Hotchkiss said was inspired by his travels in Southeast Asia. The dish’s apples are a substitute of sorts for papaya, he explained. As prepared at the NAC, the impeccable raw fish was tasty, but I thought it would have been tastier and more vibrant still if its heat, salt and olive oil had been dialled up just a notch more.
This luscious soup, made with parmesan rinds that many throw away, was a testament to Hotchkiss’s laudable efforts to minimize waste in his kitchen. It was delicious and packed with umami.
The umami fest continued with the cheese- and mushroom-bolstered Parisienne gnocchi. I have had similar dumplings in Ottawa that were a touch lighter and pillowy. Still, nutty butter and seedy gremolata helped to make this dish a wow.
How could an Alberta chef squander an opportunity to showcase beef on a high-visibility menu? Hotchkiss’s grilled striploin hit all the right notes for flavour, tenderness and savoury umami, and the sauce left after the meat had disappeared from the plate called out for sopping.
Apparently this dessert is simplicity itself, made with just lemon, cream and sugar before being garnished. It was a bit like a ubiquitous crème brûlée minus a crispy canopy, but lighter yet still rich and refreshingly bright and acidic.
While I didn’t poll everyone in the dining room, the consensus at our table for four was that Hotchkiss’s dishes, and the Bella Terra wines as well, were crowd-pleasers. I’d certainly be happy to enjoy their forthright charms again.
The NAC’s resident chefs program will later feature chef Helena Loureiro, whose Montreal restaurants Helena and Portus 360 reflect her Portuguese heritage. The special dinner featuring Loureiro’s dishes is to be held March 17. The fourth and final chef in the residency program will be Jonathan Gushue, executive chef of the Fogo Island Inn in Newfoundland, who will come to Ottawa in May.
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