For a long time, there were only a few options if you wanted a proper tasting menu in Ottawa. Atelier has always served nothing else — there's never been an à la carte option, and there probably never will be. A handful of other rooms, Beckta and Eighteen among them, have long offered a tasting menu as a choice alongside their regular menus, for guests who wanted the format without giving up the ability to order individual dishes.
That's changed. Ottawa now has more tasting menu options than at any point in its history, spanning wildly different philosophies — fermentation-driven, globally inflected, classically French, quietly confident. Here are six of the best.
A tasting menu built around fermentation
Antheia's tasting menu doesn't just showcase fermentation — it's structured around it. Chef Briana Kim's menu unfolds course by course around ingredients that have often been curing or preserving for months, shaped by an ongoing research process rather than a fixed set of dishes. It's one of the most conceptually focused tasting menus in the city, built entirely around a single, sustained idea.
Visit website →
Ottawa's original tasting-menu-only restaurant
Atelier has served nothing but a tasting menu since it opened — there's no à la carte option now, and there never has been. Chef Marc Lepine's menu changes constantly, which means the format itself has become part of the restaurant's identity rather than simply how the food happens to be served. It remains the clearest example in the city of a kitchen built entirely around the tasting-menu idea.
Visit website →
A five-course option alongside the à la carte
Beckta has quietly offered a tasting menu for years, long before the format became as common in Ottawa as it is now. The five courses sit alongside a full à la carte menu, giving guests the choice without requiring the commitment — paired, if they want it, with one of the city's deepest wine programs.
Visit website →
Classic steak and seafood, with a tasting option since 2001
Like Beckta, e18hteen has long treated the tasting menu as an option rather than the entire identity of the restaurant — available since 2001 alongside its regular Canadian steak and seafood menu. It's a more traditional take on the format, built for guests who want the structure of a tasting menu with a menu that still feels classic rather than experimental.
Visit website →
A nine-course menu that matches its room
Aiana's nine-course tasting menu is delivered with the same visual ambition as the dining room itself — dramatic presentations, tableside explanations, and a pace that treats each course as its own moment rather than a step toward the next one. It's one of the more theatrical tasting menus in the city, in the best sense of the word.
Visit website →
A ByWard Market chef's counter, tasting menu only
Giulia's ByWard Market location does something its sister restaurant doesn't — a chef's counter tasting menu, seated at the edge of the kitchen. Built around the same handmade pasta and coastal Italian sensibility the restaurant is known for, it's a newer addition to Ottawa's tasting menu scene, and one of its more intimate.
Visit website →