No Ottawa eatery made enRoute’s Best New Restaurants list. But one in Gatineau did.

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Air Canada’s long list of the country’s 32 best new restaurants this year didn’t find any worthy eateries in Ottawa. But Caméline, an Italian restaurant in Gatineau’s Vieux-Hull neighbourhood, made the cut.

Caméline opened in May 2023. Its chef-owner Simon Laroche serves house-made fresh pasta in dishes such as ricotta gnocchi with corn, chili crunch and nduja and cavatelli with chanterelles, corno di toro rosso peppers and sage.

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Ottawa saw no shortage of new restaurants open in the last year or so. However, few were in the category of upscale, creative eateries that the list from enRoute, Air Canada’s in-flight magazine, tends to favour. One prominent trend, throughout the city but especially in the west of Ottawa, has been a proliferation of new Indian restaurants.

A press release sent Tuesday to publicize the list said that Buvette Daphnée on William Street had made the long list. However, in an interview, Phil Birnbaum of Perfect Pear Communications confirmed the Quebec-style wine bar that opened in September 2023 to much acclaim by celebrity chef Dominique Dufour and her partners was not on the long list after all.

Buvette Daphnée was closed for nearly two months this year, following a walkout in late May by almost its entire staff, essentially in a revolt against Dufour’s leadership. Dufour told this newspaper in June that she took “full responsibility for not being the leader expected of me for my team and by my team. She said then that she was “stepping back” from the operation of the restaurant, which re-opened at the end of July.

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“Buvette Daphnée should not have been included” in the press release, said Birnbaum. “They were closed during the duration of the program’s travel period and our writer was not able to visit the restaurant,” he said, referring to enRoute magazine’s judge, who tried all of the long-list restaurants to winnow them down to a top-10 list.

Birnbaum added that enRoute’s editorial team was aware of the Citizen’s extensive story on the walkout and the troubled workplace at Buvette Daphnée. “Had the restaurant remained open during production, they would have taken that into further account,” Birnbaum said.

On the enRoute magazine webpage that unveiled the annual list, it says: “On this year’s search, we island-hopped from Charlottetown to Victoria, with detours to a farm in the Laurentians and a new bastion for bannock in Fort Langley. From mascarpone-piped lobster éclairs to panko-coated spam pops, these 30+ spots are serving up the most unforgettable meals.”

Apart from Caméline, the long list includes six restaurants in Montreal (Casavant, Heni, Ile-de-France, Juliette Plaza, Parapluie, Sabayon) and six in Toronto (Bar Prima, Conejo Negro, Contrada, Martine’s Wine Bar, Mhel, Takja BBQ House).

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The long list was compiled based on recommendations from a panel of experts. Air Canada sent an anonymous writer several months ago to try the long-list eateries and generate a top 10 list, which is to be announced Nov. 4 in Toronto.

In 2023, Perch, a small tasting-menu restaurant on Preston Street, ranked fourth on the enRoute top-10 list. Riviera on Sparks Street was seventh on the 2017 list. Soif Bar à vin in Gatineau’s Hull sector was 10th in 2015. Supply and Demand on Wellington Street West was fourth in 2013, and Atelier on Rochester Street was fourth in 2009.

Several restaurants set to open in Ottawa in the coming months would seem like naturals to be considered for next year’s Air Canada list.

Marc Lepine, the chef-owner of Atelier and a two-time winner of the Canadian Culinary Championship, is to open a new, 20-seat restaurant called La Petite Sauterelle, on Somerset Street West, which is to showcase produce from its year-round, indoor garden.

Ottawa chef Briana Kim, winner of the 2023 Canadian Culinary Championship, closed her acclaimed Adeline Street restaurant Alice earlier this year with the intention of opening a new restaurant called Antheia that, like Alice, will champion fermentation-focused cuisine.

phum@postmedia.com

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