Has Ottawa been unfairly treated in the best new restaurants list?

The recent publication of the longlist of Canada's 30 best new restaurants by Air Canada's EnRoute magazine was always likely to spark some debate. Everyone has different opinions on what makes a restaurant stand out and there will no doubt be a multitude of opinions over what the panel should list as the top ten, which will be revealed in November. 

However, the debate has not started and finished there. While the list of 30 features eateries from all over the country, it has not escaped the notice of Ottawans that their city has missed out. 

Of course, the Ottawa Citizen's response of "Hey, what about us?" was bound to appeal to its readers. Like any local newspaper, it will make a good living out of feeling slighted. After all, while Ottawa may not be as big as Toronto or Vancouver, surely a city of more than 860,000 people can produce a few great new places to eat each year? 

This question was examined by the paper's restaurant critic Peter Hum, who commented: "I’ve found that many such lists reflect the geographic distribution of their judges as much as anything else." He, of course, was not on the panel. 

Moreover, he opined: "I’ve dined at a few enRoute long-list restaurants in other cities in recent years, and have sometimes been struck hard by their quality - and other times felt that lesser-known Ottawa restaurants without the big-city buzz were just as worthy of kudos."

So, if we are to take Mr Hum at his word, the reality is not that none of the 30 best new Canadian restaurants are in Ottawa; just that biased judges from other places lack a bit of taste. Indeed, he named a few new places around the city he thought were well worth trying, such as Sur-Lie and Oz Kafe in the ByWard Market, Stofa on Wellington Street West and Meatings Barbecue in Orléans. "Had any of these restaurants cracked the enRoute long list, I would have thought the recognition was merited," he argued. 

It's all good stuff for parochial locals who might feel slighted, and the article might give visitors to Ottawa a few ideas of where to eat out. But has the city really been getting a raw deal from EnRoute?  

The 2017 list would suggest it is not. If there were a bias against Ottawa, surely it would have also meant none of its new eateries being listed last year, let alone making the final ten. Yet there in the latter list was Riviera, based on Sparks Street, in seventh place. 

No Ottawa establishments were in the 2016 top ten, but Middle-eastern fusion restaurant Fairouz made the top 30. In 2015, North & Navy was on the longlist.

The only difference that could be noted between those past years and 2018 was that this time Pierre Jury was the only Ottawa-based panelist, whereas Kent Van Dyk had also been present in the past. Even so, it would be harsh to suggest that this somehow indicates either that Mr Van Dyk's opinions were more influential, or Mr Jury's less so. 

It might be popular to think Ottawa has had a raw deal, but it would be wiser to see how many of its new establishments make the 2019 list before drawing any conclusions about regional bias.