Above, chef/partner Steve Mitton at Murray Street KWC restaurant has assembled six other like-minded chefs to put on regular monthly menus, rotating among their restaurants, each based on a different theme. The first is planned Oct. 22 at Murray Street, where each chef will do his own spin on the theme, pork.
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Patterned after Toronto’s successful Group of Seven, chefs in Ottawa are looking for a catchy name
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UPDATE OCT 05 12 – 12:30 PM — Ottawa’s band of rotating chefs now has a name: Knives Out Ottawa (Twitter: @KnivesOutOttawa), chef/restaurateur Steve Mitton told me this morning. Kinda catchy, don’t you think?
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OCT 05 12 – 12:01 AM — A handful of young chefs — most with their own restaurants — will soon launch a series of rotating monthly dinners that will break from their usual menus to serve discerning patrons with a taste for something, well, quite different.
Inspired by a Toronto group called Group of Seven, the first dinner on Oct. 22 at Murray Street Kitchen, Wine, Charcuterie will follow a pig theme where each of seven chefs will prepare a course, plus opening amuse bouche, featuring pork. The idea was hatched nine days ago as chefs invited by Murray chef/co-owner Steve Mitton gathered for drinks at a favourite after-hours haunt, The Moonroom on Preston Street, to thrash out ideas.
“The concept is to get a group of like-minded friends, chefs, together here in Ottawa to cook dinner at each other’s restaurants once a month,” Mitton says.
“Every once and awhile it may be a charity event where we’ll rent something else, but for the time being it’s just Monday night with the group, and maybe a few trips where hopefully we can get down to Toronto or places like that.”
Mitton says the Ottawa group is still looking for a moniker — but not Group of Seven, as that name is already tagged by the Toronto chefs. For some time now, the Group of Seven in the Big Smoke has held rotating pop-up dinners at their varied establishments, each based on a theme that could be a key ingredient, a style of music, art, or combination.
The rotating supper club (for lack of a better description) involves many of the same chefs who participated in a dining adventure that took root in the nation’s capital in the summer of 2009 under the name Cobra Ottawa, which organized secret dinners at undisclosed locations (often in private homes) offering eclectic menus to raise money for charity. Hopeful Cobra patrons signed up online for a chance to be chosen at random; those few lucky winners were told to meet at a secret street corner where they would be escorted to a mystery destination to dine on such delicacies as horsemeat, pig tails, heart, blood pudding, sweetbreads, tongue, kidney and pig’s ears, to cite a few.
Cobra Ottawa patterned itself after the famous Charlies Burgers in Toronto.
Expect none of the cloak-and-dagger stuff of Cobra Ottawa, because with this group the public gets a chance to reserve on a first-come basis as people learn about the event in blogs like Omnivore’s Ottawa and through social media.
Ottawa chef/owners involved this time are Mitton, Marc Doiron at Town, Pat Garland at Absinthe, Arup Jana of Allium, Marc Lepine of Atelier and Chris Deraiche at Wellington Gastropub. The seventh is Jamie Stunt of Oz Kafe (he does not own the restaurant).
For the first meal, Mitton will create a dish using blood, skin and pig scraps; Doiron will do a dessert using belly; Stunt has elected to work with bones; Garland will cook with the head. Other dishes are still being decided. Price for the meal will be roughly $85, while wine pairings could push it to about $160 plus tax and tip, Mitton says. Prices are still being worked out, and will likely vary with menus and locations.
Mitton says an initial dinner last May, when he brought in Group of Seven chefs from Toronto, was a sell-out success — so he’s confident the idea will fly in Ottawa.
“We’re inspired by the Toronto Group of Seven, but it’s not necessarily a group of seven in Ottawa. It could be eight, but at the moment I’ve selected six other chefs and myself.
“It was really difficult for me to choose just six other chefs to come with me,” Mitton says. “I figured that’s a manageable number — seven people in any one of our-size kitchens, except maybe Jamie at Oz Kafe where it’s kinda tight.
“I had a list of pretty much every chef in any restaurant in Ottawa with any acclaim whatsoever, so I had a list of 24. I broke it down to people I basically have numbers for and I’ve actually had drinks with, where we have almost the same mentality, and it ended up being all chef-owned restaurants, except for Jamie.
“It’s such a great group, we had such a great time down at The Moonroom chatting about it. So we’ve been sending emails back and forth trying to come up with a name, trying to figure out what we want to be called. It hasn’t been officially announced yet, but as soon as we do then we’ll start taking reservations.”
Mitton says the idea “is a camaraderie thing” where chefs get to cook with each other, socialize and work as a team.”We get to cook with each other, where normally we wound not. I mean, how often do I get to go down to Pat Garland’s kitchen and actually cook a night with him? This way we’ll all get to cook with each other, and that’s amazing.
“So these will be just dinner parties thrown by good friends at each other’s places, I would think. It’s a roaming supper club where we’re looking to share our own regular guests with everybody else, our own restaurant friends. I’m sure each place will pack their regulars, and it gives people a chance to try foods from other chefs whether or not they’ve been to their restaurants..”
You may wonder, is Ottawa ready for a rotating dining experience for eclectic tastes, featuring chefs from different restaurants?
“I think so,” Mitton says.
“I think people will be receptive.”
Clockwise from top left, the Ottawa group so far includes Pat Garland (Absinthe), Marc Lepine (Atelier), Arup Jana (Allium), Jamie Stunt (Oz Kafe), Marc Doiron (Town) and Chris Deraiche (Wellington Gastropub).
Twitter: @roneade
