Black Cat Bistro, Ottawa

Black Cat Bistro has been on my list of places to try for a very long time. My good friend, N, invited us out for dinner to meet his new girlfriend, so I took the opportunity to knock Black Cat off my list.

This place is easy to miss. I have driven and walked past Black Cat Bistro many times without even realizing it was there! The sign for the restaurant sign is not an in-your-face sign, and I find that the restaurant just kind of blends in with the building it is situated in.

But when you walk in, you get the total opposite feel. The interior is a funky modern space (designed by Yvonne Potter of Y Design Studio) with a hip feel to it. And the food? It is French with a modern twist.

To start, we had home made bread with a delicious maple butter. Not to sweet but just enough to make you crave more.

Bread with Maple Butter

For an appetizer, the four of us shared the sharing table: Chef's choice of 4 different appetizers. On the night we went, the appetizers were: a pork terrine with apple butter, bbq chicken wings, duck liver with grainy mustard & raisin jam, and asparagus salad.

Everything was very good. My favorite was definitely the duck liver. I had no idea duck liver went so well with grainy mustard!

Sharing Table

Our sharing plate came with a small plate home made baguette slices.

Baguette Slices

My main was the seared Atlantic scallops with roasted tomato, grilled green onion, asparagus, pancetta & vanilla salt. I ate my dish pretty quickly! The scallops were so well seasoned that I was just popping them in my mouth like candy.

Seared Atlantic Scallops

CK had the pan roasted Ontario pickerel with potato fingerlings, ramps, carrots, mushrooms, brown butter & caper vinaigrette. He was trying to eat healthy that night, and although it was good, I'm pretty sure he wished he had ordered the steak or burger!

Pan Roasted Ontario Pickerel

DP had the BCB Signature Steak Frites: black angus striploin with maitre d’hotel butter & Peppercorn Bordelaise.

BCB Signature Steak Frites

The frites part of the steak frites was a clean bowl of sage fries cooked in peanut oil.

Sage Fries

Every Tuesday, BCB serves a different Angus burger. N got to try the Mexican burger topped with avocado and a fried egg. The burger was massively tall, so he ended up having to cut his burger instead of biting into it. He would have liked his burger to be a bit easier to eat.

The burger was served with sage fries and a truffle mayo that went really well together!

Mexican Burger

Black Cat Bistro428 Prestron Street
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Telephone: 613-569-9998