Omnivore's Ottawa Supper Club at Atelier, Ottawa

Before I dive into my San Diego posts, I wanted to post my dinner from Atelier before too much time passes.

Ron Eade and Mike McCracken hosted the first Omnivore’s Ottawa Supper Club last week, and I was glad to be a part of it. Aside from bringing food aficionados together, the Supper Club was also created to help support outstanding restaurants in the city on a somewhat slow evening of the week.

Atelier was chosen as the first venue for OO’s Supper Club, and I was happy to return to see how the menu had evolved since the last time I was there.

For those who already know Atelier, skip on to the next paragraph. For those of you who don’t, Atelier is a forward-thinking restaurant, strictly offering a 12 course meal that puts a twist to everyday meals. The menu is regularly $75, but if you can organize a big enough group, a small discount is available. For OO’s Supper Club, dinner was $87 plus tip and a glass of wine.

If you’re ready, here comes the 12-course meal that took just over 4 hours to complete:

To start, we had the delicious BBQ bread. Atelier likes to offer their bread in chip flavors, and they have even served pickle bread in the past. I would have loved to try that one.

BBQ Bread

Next was the creamsicle, a cinnamon based creamsicle with orange and apricot fruit dots, toasted almonds, and curry leaf. This was excellent, and the different flavors blended really well together.

Creamsicle

The second course was the soft shell oyster. This was a BC Marine Gold oyster served on top of an edible celery salt oyster shell. This was served with clamato jelly, and whipped celery juice with a celery leaf. It was like an edible Caesar drink.

Soft Shell Oyster

Next was the caesar salad. This dish was a play on textures, and it also incorporated their famous test tube spoon. The green salad was frozen romaine lettuce juice, and the toppings that normally go on top of a salad such as dressing and bacon bits were in solid form inside the test tube. This was definitely a unique dish, but I found it far too bitter for my tastes.

Caesar Salad

Dressing on Top of Caesar Salad

The fourth course was the scallop. The scallop was pan seared, and then faux grill marks were placed on top of the scallop using dehydrated jalapeno powder. This was served with a citrus salsa, black olive paste, lemon balm sour cream, orange + blood orange cells, and thin slices of popcorn cumin corn chips.

The scallop was delicious, the jalapeno faux grill marks were genius, and the cumin corn chips were really neat. A tid bit of info: Atelier sources all of their seafood from Whalesbone.

Scallop

The tuna dish was lightly seared Albacore tuna with Atelier’s own lovely Tagoroshi spice blend. This was served with a lime, ginger + radish gel, green beans, dried nori (seaweed), cucumber salsa, cucumber jelly, toasted brazil nuts, fleur de sel, and pickled ginger. The tuna was amazing, and it was one of my favorites of the evening.

Tuna

The next dish was a play on Mike’s Hard Lemonade. It was a smoking frozen lemonade cloud, served on top of a lemon vodka granita and vodka jelly. On the side was lemon powder and lemon gel.

Mike's Hard Lemonade

The texture of the frozen lemonade cloud was like a hard meringue brittle. I love anything sour, so this was a great palate cleanser for me.

Mike's Hard Lemonade

The sixth course was mashed Yukon Gold potato served with black truffle, a caramelized onion punch card, and a piece of unpasteurized Quebec Sauvagine cheese melted on top. Sprinkled around the dish was elk kielbasa powder. I had something similar the last time, but I think I liked it even better this time around. The cheese was to die for.

Potato

Ok, so I have a confession to make. The above potato dish was not mine. I got so excited when my mashed potatoes came out, I forgot all about picture taking, and dove right into it. When I realized that I had forgotten to take a photo, I begged Ron Eade to take a picture of his. Luckily, he was talking so much, he hadn't started on his dish yet.

This is what my photo would have looked like had Ron not generously lent me his plate for a photo:

Potato

Next was duck confit paired with sunchoke puree, goat cheese gnocchi, and sautéed fig. This was a very lovely dish, and the gnocchi was made well.

Duck

The eighth course was named pork. This was pork tenderloin cooked sous-vide. It was served with a mustard plum sauce, butterscotch gel (with real Scotch in it), green apple puree, lemon thyme, dehydrated white onion, parmesan cheese, and parmesan foam. All of the different tastes went well with the pork, but I never thought to eat butterscotch together with mustard plum sauce.

Pork

The bison was another course cooked sous-vide. It was lightly pan seared, and served with asparagus, a sweet potato mash, cooked beet marinated in vinegar, mushroom, spruce tip aioli, and a spruce tip au naturel. The beet juice was splattered on the plate for an artistic effect.

This dish was served with a torched rosemary plant for aroma.

Bison

Right before dessert, smoking “anti-napkins” came out for a cool cleanse. These nitro-napkins were dipped in liquid nitrogen, which caused it to smoke. The sensation didn’t last long, but they were super cool.

The first dessert was called Jamaican Me Crazy. As usual, Chef Michael Holland came up with extremely fun and creative desserts that surprised everyone. This was rum soaked chocolate cake served with coconut meringue, all-spice pie dough, banana pudding paper, dehydrated mango, passion fruit + pineapple gel, AND the best part of the dessert, JERK SPICE ICE CREAM. I loved loved loved the ice cream, and like anything jerk, it had an intense kick of flavor.

Jamaican Me Crazy

The second dessert was called breakfast. This was a really fun dish, and I was smiling the whole time I was eating this. You had all the breakfast essentials: bacon 'n eggs, cereal, and pancakes. The bacon was in ice cream form, and the egg part was an egg sabayon. The pancakes and syrup were served in the reverse. It was maple syrup pancakes with a pancake sauce and flap jack croutons. The cereal was a cocoa butter sphere covered with crushed Corn Flakes, and filled with a vanilla milk center. Dotted all around the plate were orange and coffee dots. This dish is brilliant once you get it.

Breakfast

To finish off the meal, we were served bite sized ice cream sandwiches. This was a lime sandwich with Corona ice cream.

Ice Cream Sandwiches

It was another outstanding and exciting meal at Atelier. Although there were a few dishes that were similar to my last experience, they changed it enough to keep things interesting.
Check out my past meal at Atelier here.

Atelier
540 Rochester Street
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Telephone: 613-321-3537

Sample Menu