When Centretown’s newest restaurant opens its doors to the public for the first time today it’ll be asking customers to embrace a concept taught since the beginning of time to reluctant toddlers — the concept of sharing.
Share Freehouse, the new venture by former Absinthe Cafe general manager Thomas McVeigh and his wife Maeve, is all about “fine casual” communal dining.
Whether a romantic dinner for two or a night out with friends, dishes will be served with enough grub for everybody at the table and on Sunday nights, family-style dining means one big table and a prix fixe menu.
“If you’re single, come sit next to your neighbour. Meet people from the neighbourhood,” Maeve explains during an invite-only soft launch Wednesday aimed at working out the kinks and giving industry types and a few bloggers, including Apt613, a sneak peek.
“We want everybody to have the same experience.”
From appetizers to mains, each dish is priced for two. And if three’s a crowd, the portion size will expand accordingly for a fraction of the cost. (Prices and portion sizes were still being finalized on Wednesday.)
Bartender Bruce Lamothe hopes to eventually introduce cocktails for two served in fancy decanters or glass bottles, as well as punch by the bowl for larger groups.
In keeping with today’s foodie craze, head chef Danny Mongeon — formerly of Hooch — uses locally-sourced, fresh ingredients and makes everything from the brioche baguette and brown maple butter to the chocolate pecan ice cream from scratch.
But with the closure of a number of similarly eclectic restaurants in recent months — including 327 Wine Bar whose space on Somerset Street Share now occupies — and debate over market saturation in downtown Ottawa growing, one wonders why anybody would want to launch a new venture in this climate.
While Thom alludes to the fact that the location may not have been his first choice, he argues the key to success is simple.
“If you open a really good restaurant with a good chef, tight management, you will do well,” he says.
“Good food, good service, stay passionate. When you stop loving it . . .”
So what’s on the menu and is it too good to share?
Squash soup and bison appetizers.
My table of four included a friend and a couple of lovely fellow bloggers whom we met for the first time that night. We shared an appetizer of butternut squash soup with honeycomb, granola and cranberry, as well as bison tartar with pickles, crispy shallots, fresh herbs, fermented chili and cured egg yolk served with Boston lettuce leaf wraps.
The meat was beautifully spiced, the shallots added a nice crunch and the lettuce wraps made the bison fun to eat.
Our soup came in two parts. A large bowl filled with honeycomb, granola and cranberries was placed on the table. We watched the comb melt as our server poured half the soup into the bowl from a carafe before it was ladled into four smaller bowls.
Creamy and warm on a still chilly not-so-spring night, the soup was tasty but a bit sweet. It also contained sunflower seeds which prompted a fellow table mate with allergies to reach for the Benadryl.
My table mate was fine and staff were doting, though clearly still learning the menu as nobody knew about the seeds initially — a bit curious since Thom is a vegetarian with a tree nut allergy who is quite conscientious about such things.
Unfortunately the soup grew cold before I had a chance to get seconds and while the presentation was unique, the multiple dishes made for a cluttered table.
It took a while to agree on two appetizers so we skipped the “in between” course — a choice between a cheese board or an assortment of pâté.
For the main course, we chose the seared flank steak with duck fat fries, herb emulsion and smoked smelt butter. Crispy on the outside and rare in the middle, the beef was mouthwatering. The duck fries were thick cut and extra crisp and the smelt butter, subtle.
Sharing, however, was awkward since each of the four pieces of meat was a different size and there was but enough for one-and-a-half fries each. We were also never asked how we liked our steak cooked. I doubt all groups would be satisfied with rare all around.
Our second sharable dish was the Brussels sprouts, charred with roasted garlic, pecan, apple, buckwheat and maple syrup. While I couldn’t quite make out the maple, the dish was delicious.
One of two vegetarian main courses, I nonetheless couldn’t help but think that this felt more like a side.
We capped things off with dessert: beignets stuffed with blueberry preserve on a bed of whip cream and chocolate cake with salty oats and granola, chocolate pecan ice cream and pickled cherries.
The beignet balls were crispy, light and not overly sweet. The cake and ice-cream had both a sweet and savoury quality. The pickled cherries were a delicious and different touch and the ice-cream had an interesting frozen mousse-like texture. We found it tough though to break through the cake’s hard chocolate top.
Beignets and chocolate cake dessert.
Inspired in part by the neighbourhood, the cocktails came with names like Wicked Wanda and Ward 14. But at $10-$13, they were expensive and small. The wine selection, however, was decent and competitively priced and local craft beer runs a reasonable $6.50 a pint.
All in all, I think Share Freehouse is worth a stop on any foodie’s to do list and I look forward to someday checking it out on a Sunday night. But while the sharing concept is noble, I have questions about the practicality of it.
It isn’t tapas or chow mein and chicken fried rice around a Lazy Susan. It’s plated steak and trout meant for multiple mouths seated at tiny tables in a restaurant with a 38-person capacity — 55 when the patio is open.
With guests expected to stick around for several hours debating dinner, will there be enough turn-over to make it viable?
Between allergies, gluten sensitivities, lactose intolerance and aversions, will groups ever be able to agree on what to order?
Will Bob hog the potatoes and Julie leave hungry after drawing the short straw, aka, the small cut?
I suppose time will tell whether Ottawa is grown up enough to share.
Share Freehouse is scheduled to open today (Friday March 27, 2015) at 5pm and is located at 327 Somerset Street West. Call 613.680.4000 to make a reservation or go online.
