St. Elsewhere — Restaurant in Ottawa

Took my girlfriend here for her birthday dinner in July 2024.

My girlfriend is vegetarian, but not vegan, and I'll happily eat anything, so this is a non-vegan's review.

TLDR: It was great, recommended.

Note: The cheeses are almost entirely nut-based, so if you have a nut allergy, this is not the restaurant for you. Ditto soy and gluten, for obvious veggie-protein reasons. A number of the dishes do rely on nightshades - hot peppers and pepper-based spice blends, and tomatoes (not eggplant, unexpectedly) - so if that's an allegen for you, this may also be one to miss.

BUT if you don't have those kinds of allergies, please read on, as we had a great time and the food was lovely.

The small plates menu makes for good, generally shareable appetizers, and the large plates - while not huge in portion size - ARE both filling and delicious. In addition to being a wine bar - and, yes, the staff in knowledgeable about the wines - they also have a small but well-rounded selection of mocktails and other non-boozy "grown-up drinks", plus a few beer, cider, and cocktail options. My girlfriend ordered the "Mockay Sour", which, when I tried it, was refreshing and had a nicely complex flavour profile.

We split a jerk jackfruit tostada for an appetizer. If you like jerk spice, you'll enjoy this. If you're like me, and have a lower tolerance for hot spices, you'll want to have a glass of muscat, vidal, or other sweet wine on hand to help cut through the heat. The pickled onion and guac toppings were good complements to the jerk blend, though I'd have personally liked it if they'd used a mix of micro greens rather than just shredded romain as a topper. Next time I'll probably suggest "things on toast" as a shareable, but that's just me.

My girlfriend ordered the Lion's Mane large plate for her entree. The sauce was rich and umami-y and pared well with the fennel and leek, the baby potatoes were perfectly done, and the chunks of lion's mane mushroom were satisfyingly chewy without being rubbery.

I ordered the Gnocchi with soy sausage on the recommendation of the staff. The kombu sauce was subtle enough that you couldn't actually taste the seaweed - a minus for me, as I love seafood, but not actually a problem. I was warned that the gnocchi - which, at a vegan restaurant, are more like pan-friend mashed-potato dumplings than the firmer traditional kind made with eggs in the dough - really depends on who made the batch that day for quality. I got lucky, and they were fine. Nicely seared on the outside and soft, without being gluey, on the inside. I would say that if you're off-put by "fake meat", this is probably not the one to go with, and I do recommend asking the server how the gnocchi is that day but, having tried it, I would say it's hearty and very tasty, so I'd recommend it. Also, if you're bringing a non-veg person to dinner, it's a good one to point them towards, especially if they (like me) make noises about "am I going to have enough to eat / get enough protein here?" and/or are skittish about mushroom-heavy dishes.

I'll have to try the oyster mushroom risotto - or maybe the udon carbonara - next time I go.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to stay long enough to try any of the desserts but I plant to go back, so maybe I'll get to try them then. This was a lovely Date Night restaurant, but would also be nice for an evening out with friends. I hope St Elsewhere sticks...

We came here on a date night and had cocktails, wine, and a variety of plates.

Since this restaurant specializes in vegan/vege offerings we decided to try things that we can't/don't make at home (I do a lot of pasta, gnocchi, etc.)

The beet tartare was delicious but I highly suggest sharing it as an app because it would be a lot of the same for one person.

The lion's mane plate was fantastic, I cannot give this enough praise and would return for this dish alone. Sooo good.

Next we got the smoked tofu. Neither of us enjoyed this. We are big fans of tofu but this dish was a medium firm tofu that was way too smoky with no other flavours to complement it, the pineapple was tasteless and looked clear like when you get them from a can, and the guajillo chilli sauce just tasted like tomato (I use guajillo a lot in my own cooking for mexican fare so was excited to see it on the menu). Overall inedible for me.

Finally the saitan. We had never tried it and thought this would be the place to do it. I could not get over the odd gelatinous texture of this dish. I'm sure that if you like saitan that this would have been good but it truly was not something I could bring myself to eat. We ate the veggies on the side. My partner ate more of this dish and said it could have done with some sort of sauce since it was all very dry.

Overall, I would not dissuade someone from trying this place but would not necessarily...

It was a super cute place that looked tiny from the outside but went way back. They have about 5 or 6 booths and one big half booth for larger parties (seats 6 comfortably but could squeeze 8 and maybe 10 with extra chairs on the end). Along with the booths they had maybe 8 other tables as well. My boyfriend and I are not vegan or dairy/gluten free or anything like that but some of our family is so we thought we would try. We were super impressed with it and it was pretty delicious.

We had been interested in dessert and would have ordered another round of drinks and probably 3 desserts but after our server came by and cleared the table and told us about the desserts we never saw them again. We waited for them to come back and after about 30 mins they did and we decided we were done.

Normally I don’t mind sitting and waiting as I am in the industry, however, there were only three tables (including ours) and even the server dealing with the one table of 6 behind us didn’t come by and check as we just sat there waiting. We couldn’t even flag our server down as we never saw them after they mentioned dessert and the other server never even gave us the time of day. I will also note that it was only 5:45/6pm and not busy so the lack of concern is kind of upsetting.

Our guest truly enjoyed themselves so we would go back if she were in town and I will 100%...