Atelier Restaurant

It's not often Eric comes home talking excitedly about a restaurant he's heard about, but what he heard about Atelier Restaurant immediately intrigued him. He started watching the youtube videos and reading the blog and would tell me all about the interesting things they were doing.

The restaurant is pricey so we couldn't justify it for just any occasion, but our fifth wedding anniversary seemed worthy. And for this night, Losing it in Ottawa did not enter into my head :)




I wasn't going to bring my camera in... I get shy taking photos in public. But once I saw someone with their point and shoot taking flash photos of every course I figured I could take some subtle photos without the flash. :)



The food at Atelier is a work of art. Each piece of each meal is carefully thought out in terms of look and taste and how it all works together. Each course as in all 12 of them! Atelier has what they call a blind menu - essentially you eat what they're making that night. They do ask if you have any allergies, dislikes, etc before you start. We decided to just go with whatever came at us.

We started with Down by the Bay - it not only had "sea foam", an oyster and was served on a river rock.... there was grilled watermelon (which was a HEAVENLY mouthful). Genius start to the meal.

The presentation was divine and there were so many flavours that I am usually not the biggest fan of that just WORKED when put into these combinations.

This course was called cocktail party and you ate them in a specific order. Each piece was on a piece of cheddar and ranged from "french onion soup" to a jalapeno popper with dehydrated bacon, and apple pie.

What's a tomato salad with a dehydrated tomato chip on top?

I don't really like goat's cheese. Eric doesn't like sweet potato. I've never had duck before. All three things together was one of the most pleasant taste experiences of my life. Drool.... drool!

This was squab. I'd never heard of squab. It was cooked using this method of cooking called sous-vide that Eric has been telling me about for a long time. Again, I'm obviously no food writer because all I want to say is OMG DROOL DROOL SO YUMMY!

Three dessert courses my friends! This one was called high five.

This one came out smoking :)


I didn't take a photo of every course, but every course was divine. The wine pairings were a highlight for Eric - I chose to just have a couple of glasses of white because red gives me headaches.

The meal isn't cheap, but it was worth every penny - and we intend to go back for Eric's birthday! :)