Share Freehouse
327 Somerset St. W., 613-680-4000, sharefreehouse.ca
Open: Monday to Saturday 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., Sunday 4 p.m. to midnight
Prices: appetizers $15 and up, mains $17 to $26, double portions $33 to $45
Access: stairs to front door, one step to washrooms
In the six months that Share Freehouse has been open, the Centretown eatery has seen more than its fair share of changes.
True to its name, Share’s first menus pushed family-style dining hard, with main courses offered “for two” and priced accordingly, with optional “plus one” supplements. That was when Share, owned by Thom McVeigh, had Danny Mongeon, who formerly ran the kitchens at Hooch Bourbon House and Brut Cantina Sociale, as its chef.
But by June, Mongeon had left Share. Some time later, he was replaced by Aaron Wong, who was cooking at Salt Dining and Lounge. New menus have offered shareable, super-sized dishes, but also more conventional single servings too.
Bar snacks also figure on the menu, which are true to the location’s previous existence as 327 Wine Bar. Pretzels, crostini, spring rolls and the like are meant to go with a selection of whiskies and cocktails, a few local beers and choices from a wine list that could use a bit more information on it, such as countries of origin.
I’ve dined at Share three times. The first time, Mongeon was in the kitchen. I visited two more times in the last month. The bottom line: portion sizes aside, the dishes here have been ambitious and generous creations. The best conceived and executed ones, especially by Mongeon, put smiles on faces. Judicious choices from the menu can amount to a satisfying, interesting meal. But during the recent visits, there were enough uneven dishes with impressive components beside lesser ones to prompt grumbling and questioning too.
Fortunately, they were available in single portions, as mandatory double portions would have been doubly disappointing.
What has worked best at Share? If you can get some warm, freshly baked vanilla stout bread with maple butter, you will want to eat a loaf of the stuff.
Two other winners build on what Mongeon served in Share’s early days. The bison tartare ($15), which I’ve had twice, has been fantastic — one of Ottawa’s best raw meat dishes. Give credit to its assertive seasoning, the crunch of fried shallots mixed with lean, nicely chopped meat, and the covering of grated cured egg yolks. Wong has pushed the dish into full Asian mode, adding pickled clams, house-made kimchi and hoisin sauce along with lettuce leaves for wrapping. The Momofuku Bo-Ssam-style garnishes are arguably more than the wow-worthy tartare needs, but I’m not against them.
Bison tartare at Share Freehouse
Share’s roasted bone marrow ($17), scooped onto buttered toast, was rich and indulgent, with parsley’s herbal hit cutting its fattiness. (In Share’s earlier days, the parsley came with more finesse, in something closer to a rough purée.) A bowl of wan duck jus on the side, however, seemed superfluous in the recent tweak of the dish.
Roasted bone marrow at Share Freehouse
On a charcuterie board ($24), smoked arctic char, duck “ham” and a creton-like spread got a thumbs up. But the overly chewy root-beer bison jerky was too much effort to eat, and the board as a whole, like other dishes, struck us as over-priced. (Generally prices have risen since Share opened.)
Charcuterie board at Share Freehouse
Share’s ancient grains salad ($9) was full of nutty goodness, but there was a little too much oiliness to its squash fritters and deep-fried kale.
Ancient grains, squash fried kale salad at Share Freehouse
A duck main course ($26), inspired by shawarma wraps, demonstrated what worked and what didn’t at Share. The slices of duck breast were flawless, while lemony potatoes, baba ghanoush and other fixings were fine. But the mini-pitas were dense and insufficient, and over all, the dish was somewhat user-unfriendly, as the question of whether it was simply deconstructed or meant to be fussily reassembled was never answered. In this and other cases, our server, while amiable and attentive, wasn’t clear on the food’s details or intentions.
Duck “shwarma” at Share Freehouse
Slices of tri-tip beef ($24) had good flavour, as well as a lot of chew, but the limp, lifeless fries with them were a let-down.
Tri-tip steak for two at Share Freehouse
Leaving aside more of those subpar fries, a plate of pan-roasted pickerel ($24) was the best of the mains during a recent visit, with moist, fresh fish and accompaniments such as nicely acidic green beans, ancient grains and more playing together well.
Pickerel and fries at Share Freehouse
The DLT sandwich ($23), made with molasses-smoked duck bacon, lettuce and tomato, needed more duckiness. Super-rich, it tasted mostly of a heavy slathering of aioli.
Duck bacon, lettuce and Tomato Sandwich at Share Freehouse
To its credit, Share is mindful of vegetarians and vegans, offering at least one main for each preference. Its hearty vegetarian pot pie ($18), made with cheesy mashed potatoes, a sage bechamel sauce and assorted vegetables and served with house bread, was as rib-sticking as vegetarian dishes get. In hindsight, it was a too-heavy, too-bready choice on a fat-forward night that also included bone marrow and a DLT.
Vegetable pot pie at Share Freehouse
Share’s multi-component desserts ($8), while not quite artfully plated, have generally worked for me, including the chocolate ganache/chocolate-sea-salt ice cream and grapefruit sorbet/scones options. The peanut butter ice cream (very dense) with French toast (rich, naturally) was more heavy than we liked.
Chocolate dessert and Tea time scones dessert at Share Freehouse
Peanut butter ice cream French toast dessert at Share Freehouse
Root beer doughnut at Share Freehouse
There are good ingredients at Share, along with some good ideas and techniques. But there have also been too much going on with some dishes and some cooking lapses.
I hope that this unevenness can be chalked up to a work still in progress, and that another six months at Share will be filled with changes for the better.
phum@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/peterhum
ottawacitizen.com/tag/dining-out
