Through the looking glass at Ottawa’s Alice

Briana Kim has been getting your dinner at Alice ready for years.

A compact 20-seat spot on the edge of Ottawa’s Little Italy, Alice has been making a name for itself (and for the dining scene in Canada’s otherwise sleepy capital city) for the past four years. Trained at New York’s Eleven Madison Park, Kim is the recent winner of the 2023 Canadian Culinary Championships and landed 31st place in Canada’s 100 Best for her innovative, sublimely presented dishes.

The political scientist-turned-chef is a forager and fermenter who searches for pinecones, spruce tips and mushrooms in the abundant woods outside of Ottawa. Kim and her small team then play with their finds in Alice’s vegetable-focused kitchen laboratory, using some of what they ferment as soon as it's ready, and saving other bits just to see what happens a few years down the road. From homemade vermouth to lilac preserved in raw honey, to growing brie cheese mould on root vegetables, much of Kim’s preserves, salsas and fermented paste creations – including some inventory from when she opened in 2019 – are displayed in cabinets lining the walls of the restaurant. Those filled jars are an endless source of joy and exploration for her and a treasure trove of umami for her loyal followers.

“I love science,” Kim declares. “When I’m trying to do something that hasn’t been done before, or I can’t find it on the internet, I read PhD papers to find things out.” Alice’s offerings reflect the depth of Kim’s approach, as her picture-perfect (and perfectly delicious) plates reveal layer upon layer of flavour.

_{Forest landscape ice cream}

Right now, Kim and her small team – never more than 10 at once, in the cosy dining room/kitchen space – are getting ready for the mid-summer release of the Field menu, showcasing Ontario’s summer ingredients in combination with fruits and vegetables preserved from last year’s harvest. Ottawa has three seasons, Alice’s eight-course blind-tasting menu asserts. In addition to the Field menu, the fall-into-winter menu, called Forest, and the Cellar menu, spanning winter to early spring, are distinct, with each menu planned at least six months in advance and staying the same throughout the season. The constants in the kitchen’s creations are fermentation agents, like salt, koji, mould and raw honey. Dishes are rarely repeated exactly from one menu to the next: though elements may remain the same, they get played with so that diners are guaranteed a different experience each time.

“All fermentation serves a different purpose,” Kim says. “Everyone is familiar with lacto-fermentation using salt: it’s a really simple method that goes a long way. But fermenting something with rice koji instead of salt yields a completely different outcome. That’s forever fascinating to me.”

Kim’s recent menus featured foods that she’s been fermenting and preserving over the past four years: yuba schnitzel with pine and basil gel veil, rye and leek sourdough with fermented ramps and pine koji butter; smoked and cured maitake mushrooms in a fermented kelp broth; pumpkin seed tempeh tempura in a celeriac tortilla alongside lacto-fermented plum salsa. All showcase her creative pairings of taste, texture and colour.

_{Cured mushroom skewers}

The commitment to fermentation extends to the drinks menu as well. Guests start off with a cocktail -– always Negroni-style -– featuring Kim’s in-house vermouth. For the Forest menu last year, a pinecone negroni was on offer, showcasing the fruits of the team’s foraging efforts.

Trained in Copenhagen at both Muri (for non-alcoholic beverages) and the Empirical distillery, Kim has brought home what she learned, and then some. The fermented juice pairing option (read: low- and no-alcohol) might include preserved summer corn translated into a spiced chicha, or kvass, made from Alice’s rye sourdough starter. The wine pairings feature biodynamic, non-filtered, skin-contact wines. “A lot of guests get one of each pairing and compare the flavour and tasting notes because it’s a completely different experience,” she says.

Diners can expect an interactive service at Alice. It’s the kitchen staff who prep, makes the food, plates it and brings it to the guests, Kim says. “The front of house team guides the experience, while the kitchen team goes to each table and describes the dishes, the origins of the ingredients, the process, and highlights of the fermented ingredients,” she explains.

_{Sous chef Samantha Mueller and chef Briana Kim in front of the fermentation cabinet}

That storytelling is a key part of the Alice experience, Kim says. She sees the restaurant as a place where stories are told and shared, choosing the name from Alice in Wonderland, and the logo from The Secret Garden, two of her favourite books. She thinks a lot about what happens behind the green door. “So much goes into our food, from foraging to fermentation: a lot of physical work, time, and emotional investment,” Kim says. “We really want to get our mission and story across at each table, to share our process and how we do things.”

It's an oral tradition, then, and diners should pay attention: the menu is kept close until its time of the year has come. Even in the restaurant, the written menu is only shared at the end of the meal.

“We make all the choices for you at Alice,” Kim says proudly. For those diners lucky enough to live in Ottawa year-round, and for many who travel to experience Alice each season, they’re ready to follow her anywhere.