The ultimate central Ottawa Foodie Guide

My EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie global fellowship was hosted by the University of Ottawa, and I spent a lot of time throughout 2024 and 2025 in this city. My driver’s license was stolen one day before my flight to Canada in Paris 🙁 In a country with terrible public transport I walked my way to restaurants and comfort food through what was described as one of the harshest Ontario winters in 2025. Ottawa is a scattered city with lots of delicious pockets in every corner. This guide focuses on central Ottawa and walking distances. It aims to liberate you from the shackles of Tim Horton and other chains with sad food. I am not a vegetarian and unfortunately, have not paid enough attention to vegan and vegetarian options in these places. I have not modified the guide for those options, because I did not want to mislead anyone. However, my ultimate suggestion for delicious creative vegetarian and vegan food is Pure Kitchen Elgin. The Korean Cauliflower is to die for.

Finally, as far as I understood, there is no “Canadian” food. Canada is a melting pot of cultures and is a great place for culinary experiences. I have mentioned one great place for Poutine but never found the courage to try a Caesar- Canada’s most famous cocktail with clam broth. Unfortunately, I never came across indigenous food. Food like language and culture can be killed and the absence of indigenous food says a lot about what Canada still needs to do.

On UOttawa campus

Flour Kitchen is a little family stand that serves the best Chinese noodle soup with beef cuttings and freshly made steamed dumplings. Order in advance on cold days and you can pick up your food ready to go!

The ground floor of social sciences building smells like fresh croissants and pain au chocolat (or to be Quebec-correct: chocolatine). Visit Boulangerie Première Moisson in the morning: the drinks are not as exciting but grab a crisp buttery snack for your break!

If you are looking for a bar of chocolate, a nice fizzy drink, or a simple snack, Pivik is your convenience store on campus: very unflattering but the Samosas do the job!

Feel like a student pub? A pint of good Canadian beer and cheap burgers? Nostalgica Pub & Beer Garden has that friendly vibe and shy students will serve you while commenting on your heated intellectual discussion with some fresh insight from their last lecture.

Cheap eats

My saddest moment of saying goodbye to Ottawa was farewell to Shanghai Wonton Noodle Restaurant. This family run restaurant has no two chairs or tables resembling each other and you must sit between towers of cartons BUT the dumplings are handmade right in front of you and the soup is divine. You can eat happily with less than $10 CAD. It’s a dream!

Hidden at the back section of La Bottega Nicastro, there is an Italian sandwich deli with fresh bread and a variety of choices for meat cuts, cheese, and toppings. Avoid the busy lunch hour: the queue is fast moving but very long! You can instead head to Continental Delicatessen, a Polish grocery store, that also makes great sandwiches!

Mid-range Good Food

Datsun, on Elgin, serves Asian fusion food with delicious cocktails. Definitely try the pork belly bao!

Corazon De Maiz is a family run Mexican food corner at Byward Market with heavenly tacos. You know it’s good because most customers are Mexican. The owners are super friendly and kind. Try the very hot sauce only if you can stomach it: I have seen some egos shattering there!

Ratatouille Bistro serves nice dinners and wonderful brunches. They have a mishmash of European cuisines, but they do it well. The brunch is typical Canadian, and you need to book in advance. It’s a beloved spot!

If you want to hang out with locals and watch hockey simultaneously on five screens, head down to Chez Lucien. They have a good selection of pub food and some limited sea food dishes. You can’t book and you should be lucky to get a table at dinner time. My advice is to sit at the bar and enjoy the conversations and the fast pace of bar tenders. There is always somebody who will buy shots for their neighbour!

Fine Dining

Buvette Daphnée has made some controversial headlines in the sleepy winters of Ottawa because their head chef stole a waiting staff’s boyfriend and was pretty abusive, but they have amazing food and a heavenly selection of wine (she has also been replaced). The food and wine pairing will cost you around $150 CAD but it’s worth it. Be careful with the wine because they pour very generously!

Coffee

Canadians drink coffee in litters and carry a barrel of water with them everywhere: this was a cultural shock for a German-Iranian! Some chains like Happy Goat and Bridgehead serve descent coffee but they have a corporate feel. My three favourite cafes are very close to each other:

Equator Coffee at the National Arts Centre has delightful views and wonderful architecture around you (plus good coffee!). Little Victories has its own roastery and serves the typical high quality third wave coffee with wonderful latte art. For a more nuanced and interesting environment, walk to Ottawa Bike Café. Everything is delicious here and they have very good lunch deals; You can also watch their staff repair bicycles!

Ice Cream

The only decent ice cream in the city centre is Piccolo Grande Artisan Gelateria. If you are as picky as I am about your frozen desert, avoid the commercial ice cream shops in the Byward Market area and don’t be fooled by their ratings. Piccolo Grande is quite expensive, but the servings are North American size, and the flavours are diverse and interesting.

However, for the best ice cream in the city, you will need to get on the O-Train. Take Line 1 towards Tunney’s Pasture and get off at either that final stop or the one before, Bayview. Either way, it’s a 10-minute+ walk to Moo Shu, a Hong Kong-style ice cream shop. Their grandma’s house ice cream made me cry: The tastes are designed to awaken a memory and whoever makes those ice creams is a poet!

Drinking

I’m not big in drinking game but have two favourite spots. Brigid’s Well is an Irish pub hidden at the basement of an old stone church. There are no signs and no windows: only if the light outside is burning, you’d know that the pub is on. The pub has become very popular recently and is very busy on weekends but if you go there on weeknights, you can enjoy a perfectly poured pint of Guiness or a glass of good Irish whiskey. There are sometimes free whiskey tastings if you are lucky!

If you feel like a classic cocktail bar with sketchy romance movies played in the background and deemed down lights, Hyde is the place to be. They also have delicious pizzas and appetizers.

If you are feeling cheap and cheeky, you can go to the basement of LCBO on Rideau Street on Saturday morning and attend their classy wine tasting with free snacks. I have had some great wine and champagne here; there is zero pressure to buy anything, although the quality was most of the time too convincing!

Some further walking…

If the weather is good and you are in exploration mood, try these places in walking distances less than an hour:

Arlington Five is one of my most favourite cafes in the world (it means a lot: I am a coffee nerd and travel a lot). It ticks every box for that wonderful cosy neighbourhood café you always dreamt off. Fresh scones, great coffee, a safe space for LGBTQ+ community and a welcoming smile for everyone make this place beautiful. Unfortunately, it also means that it’s impossible to find a table there sometimes. If you are in the neighbourhood, walk by; you might get lucky.

This area is called Centretown, which historically also contained the 2SLGBTQ+ “village” around Bank and Somerset, although there is very little active evidence of that now, just some street art and historical information panels – although Capital Pride is still based in the area.

In this same neighbourhood, you could finally eat the national dish of Canada. Everyone has advised you to get some great Canadian poutine? Oh well, you have to go to the Great Canadian Poutinerie! It’s good. It’s really good.

Further up Bank still, if you are craving proper Japanese ramen, go no further than Jinsei Ramen Restaurant. It is located in a weird shopping mall with the Government of Canada occupying the ground floor like a franchise of a chain store, but the ramen is worth it.

As a Middle Easterner I am always on the look for good Falafel and Falafel Scoop & Shawarma immediately throws me back to streets of Beirut. The owner is very nice and, like all Middle Eastern falafel shops, gives you a falafel to munch on while your food is getting ready. Portions are very generous here!

If you head the other way on Bank Street, or alternatively walk along the Rideau Canal path from the university, you get to the beautiful and very bougie Glebe neighbourhood. There are lots of things there, but my favourite Sunday brunch in the world is a crunchy south Indian Dosa (thin, filled, Indian rice pancakes)  with Chai, and The Dosa Spot hits that spot!

And finally, if you find your way through the gates of Chinatown, there is one of the best Phô places you will find anywhere here: Phô Tuan, a tiny family-run place, which is basically like the family’s front room. They serve Thai tea while your food is being prepared. Enjoy the tea watching the rolling screen savers of Vietnam’s breathtaking sceneries.