HeadQuarters, ByWard Market — Restaurant in Ottawa

My fiancé and I live 6 hours away but were in town visiting family and decided to hit this spot up before our drive back home.

We were greeted and seated immediately by the owner, Alexander. He set us up with a vase of water right away. His customer service was incredible; personable, natural conversationalist, & offered drink & menu recommendations. He even brought us out 2 drinks on the house as he found out, within conversation, that my fiancé and I are getting married this year. Not only was the gesture appreciative and thoughtful, the mimosas were delicious and so fresh. In fact, all the staff there were friendly. Offering warm smiles and acknowledgement whenever passing by or making eye contact. We also loved the vibes of the spot; great location, modernized & bright inside, salon is separated by glass windows and a separate entrance so salon and restaurant can see within each other without a physical crossover.

Now the drinks & food..absolutely STUNNING. The presentation, the proportion, the flavours. Everything was immaculate. Alexander knows what he’s doing. We had the tiramisu and the vanilla cinnamon hazelnut lattes, both on ice..they hit the spot. I had the avocado toast while my fiancé had the fried chicken and croffles (waffled croissant). We both analyzed our meals and couldn’t think of a way to make them better lol. We left lunch feeling satisfied but with still room left for a sweet treat if wanted. We will have to try some of his baked goodies next time we stop in.

We never waited long for any part of the service; from the seating, ordering, receiving drinks/food, quality check, or bill wrap up.

Overall we cannot WAIT to be back and we will be recommending this spot to our family and friends who live nearby the Ottawa area. Thanks again to Alexander for making our...

I’m not one to write reviews but I had to. First time at HQ and it was quite a neutral experience. The food was great but the service we received from Emma left us with a bitter taste.

We were a table of 4 and one friend ended up being super late (our bad for that). While waiting and taking time to catch up we wanted the croffle/fried chicken meal which she told us was sold out as there’s no more chicken left. Never gave us alternatives we chose something else. Roads were closed due to the protest so we took our friend’s order over the phone. She kept MISGENDERING him and calling him “she” after correcting her twice and saying it’s a guy not a girl- still kept calling her she. At that point we left it alone. She told us there’s no bacon but could be replaced with grilled chicken instead— at that point I reminded her she told us there’s no chicken left- she said there’s no fried chicken left—- she never gave us that information or option to replace the fried chicken with the grilled chicken if that could have been done.—- whether it’s fried or grilled or boiled CHICKEN IS CHICKEN.

It honestly felt like any questions we would ask was a pain for her to answer. Eye rolled- tight shoulders, cold demeanor—- just looked like she didn’t want to be there. Didn’t check on us to see if everything was good.

I want to say a BIG THANK YOU to Dan who was not our server but was such a joy to have come across!! He gave us water when he saw our glasses were empty, asked us how our meals were and if we needed anything. Had a smile and such a warm aura. He didn’t have to but he did it and it was not left unnoticed. I wish the tip would have gone to him instead.

Just for him, I would come to the restaurant again. His customer service was excellent and the...

This was an overall disappointing brunch experience. First, it took about 15 minutes for someone to come over to offer us water and take a drink order (this should have been the hint to just get up and leave, but we wanted to give the place a fair chance and also try something new). We placed our orders and got our coffees (americano, flat white), which in all fairness, were very good. We finished our coffees and whole jug of water without anyone asking if we would like anything else or to give us an update on the food that we had ordered 45 minutes earlier. I decided to order mimosas at the bar from the bartender, which were brought to our table relatively promptly by another server, but with no apology. The food came literally 1 hour after we ordered, again with no apology for delays. We sat for 5 minutes without any cutlery to eat the food. I was feeling sympathetic for the servers, thinking that it must be hard with all of the closures from the pandemic, but when I got up to use the restroom after eating, there were like 5 or 6 servers all standing together talking at the back of the restaurant. So really, the service was just really poor, inattentive and unapologetic. The brunch itself was alright (vegetarian bennies) with the potatoes as the highlight. Definitely not worth the...