A look at Ottawa's new restaurants of 2025, and the many that closed

The ongoing cycle of Ottawa restaurants closing only to be quickly replaced by new eateries was in full swing in 2025, yielding an even more interesting and diverse dining scene for food-lovers to plumb in 2026.

In December 2025 alone, openings that considerably expanded restaurant-going options dotted the city. They ranged from a trailblazing chef’s much-anticipated destination in Chinatown for rarefied fine dining to a 24-hour, vegetarian, South Asian eatery in Kanata to the arrival of Armenian and Uyghur cuisines in downtown Ottawa.

No restaurant debut was more eagerly awaited than the early December opening night of Antheia on Somerset Street West.

Chef Briana Kim, winner of the 2023 Canadian Culinary Championship, announced as far back as fall 2023 that Antheia was in the works. The upstairs restaurant in Chinatown between Preston and Rochester streets is the sequel to Kim’s acclaimed plant-based restaurant in Little Italy, Alice, which she closed in early 2024 to make way for Antheia.

Named after the Greek goddess of vegetation and gardens, Antheia is, in Kim’s words, a “fermentation R&D lab” and 16-seat chef’s counter restaurant that serves a multi-course tasting menu.

The cost of dining at Antheia is $225 per person, which includes the 13 per cent tax and a 20 per cent service charge, and guests pre-pay for their dinners when they buy tickets, which are non-refundable but transferable, online.

Antheia’s tickets are released on the first of each month, so that on Jan. 1, tickets will be released for February. Kim says that most of Antheia’s reservations have been snapped up within an hour of tickets being released, and that guests from different cities are visiting.

“It’s been going really well,” she said.

Meanwhile, Ottawa chef Marc Lepine, a two-time winner of the Canadian Culinary Championship and the owner of Atelier on Rochester Street, continues to have his second restaurant, Sauterelle, in the works. Lepine announced his plan to open Sauterelle, a Somerset Street West restaurant with its own year-round, indoor garden, in June 2024. In the fall of 2025, Lepine did not give an opening date when the question was put to him.

Early 2026, however, has been cited as the opening timeframe for a new and intriguing restaurant at the Fairmont Château Laurier. The storied downtown hotel is to host a modern Japanese-inspired restaurant that’s part of the global portfolio of chef-restaurateur Akira Back. Seoul-born and Colorado-raised, Back has almost 30 restaurants spread over nine brands. There are 14 locations of his eponymous Akira Back restaurant, typically in hotels in such cities as Paris, Tenerife, Seoul, Bangkok, Istanbul and Hong Kong, and the Château’s Akira Back will add one more to the list.

While the openings of Antheia, Sauterelle and Akira Back sit at the apex of Ottawa’s restaurant scene, the recap below, while hardly exhaustive, documents the turnover in 2025 on some of the city’s main dining-out strips.

New restaurants in the ByWard Market

In the ByWard Market, some of the neighbourhood’s most venerable restaurants made way for successors.

After Blue Cactus Bar and Grill held its last hurrah on New Year’s Eve last year and then shut, Grey’s Social Eatery, part of hospitality entrepreneur Abbis Mahmoud’s extensive Dreammind Group, opened in April.

In mid-March, the Dunn’s Famous Deli that for almost two decades sold smoked meat sandwiches and more at its Dalhousie Street corner location, closed as a result of its ownership group’s pessimism about the future. Nevertheless, a Chuck’s Roadhouse location soon opened in its place.

In mid-April, Fairouz Cafe on Clarence Street shut down so that its owners could open three new food-and-drink businesses in the National Capital Commission-owned space. The following month, the owners opened the modern steakhouse Sussex & Co., the cocktail bar Little Sussex and the casual Burger Bar opened in the Fairouz space.

In the early summer, chef Lizardo Becerra, who competed in the 2025 Canadian Culinary Championship representing Ottawa and his Elgin Street restaurant Raphael Peruvian Cuisine, opened his second, more casual eatery, Barrio, on Rideau Street, where the Pure Kitchen location had been.

In the summer, further east on Clarence Street, the Peruvian restaurant Tayanti opened, replacing the pizzeria Il Vicolo.

In late August, the Dalhousie Street Indian restaurant Shafali closed after almost 30 years in business. Within a few weeks, its owner, Gias “Salim” Uddin, opened the Moroccan restaurant Tagine in Shafali’s stead.

In mid-September, 99 VIP Seafood, an upscale Cantonese restaurant, had its soft opening in mid-September. It opened on Rideau Street, in the long-vacant location that had been a notorious McDonald’s.

More recently, in mid-December, Yan’s Restaurant opened on Murray Street where the long-closed Fiazza pizza eatery had been. Yan’s serves Armenian and Georgian fare, including grilled meats and clay pot soups and fresh bread, championing two otherwise unrepresented cuisines in Ottawa.

Also in the ByWard Market, Play Food & Wine is entering its final days. The small-plates restaurant, which restaurateur Stephen Beckta opened 17 years ago, is to have its final service on Jan. 10. The property’s landlords are close to finalizing a lease with a new tenant that would operate a turnkey restaurant, Beckta said just before Christmas.

A new restaurant in New Edinburgh

Dhruvees, which since February 2022 served dishes from multiple South Asian cuisines from its Beechwood Avenue address, announced its closure in September. The property is now a dental office.

A few doors down on Beechwood Avenue, the sushi eatery SushiMe ended a 14-year run when it closed in October. In that space, the unique-in-Ottawa restaurant Altay Flame Uyghur Cuisine opened in mid-December.

New restaurants in Centretown

In January, the specialized Chinese restaurant Dumpling Bliss opened on Cooper Street, where the Chinese restaurant Cumin and Pepper had been.

The casual Northern Chinese restaurant Chef Bai Noodles Soup & Bao opened on Bank Street near Cooper Street in February.

Hanyang Jokbal, a Korean restaurant specializing in pork hocks that has several Toronto locations, is to open on Bank Street near Slater Street, where Kyoto Sushi had been.

On the south end of Elgin Street, the restaurant Good Neighbour opened in the summer where a St. Louis Bar & Grill location had been.

New restaurants on Preston Street

Little Italy’s main drag saw several notable businesses call it quits in 2025, as well as some new arrivals.

Katha, a much-admired modern Indian restaurant on Preston Street, closed in late January 2025, about 16 months after it opened. However, its chef-owner, Teegavarapu Sarath Mohan, returned to run the kitchen at Katha’s successor, Ek Bar, when that contemporary Indian restaurant opened in late May. Mohan has a stake in Ek Bar, along with co-owner Hemant Bhagwani, a Toronto-based chef, restaurateur and globe-trotting culinary industry veteran who has opened five dozen restaurants in multiple cities.

A prime Preston Street pizzeria changed hands after Roberto Pizza, owned by entrepreneur Richard Valente and named after his late brother and business partner, closed in May. It made way for the second location of Schoolhouse Pizza, a  New Edinburgh pizza joint.

Preston Street became more diverse when Golden Ox Noodles, one of the few Ottawa-area restaurants to serve Indonesian food, opened in late July. It replaced the restaurant Festival of India.

Karahi Boys, a halal Pakistani restaurant franchise that has eight other locations in Ontario and two in Texas, touched down on Preston Street and had its grand opening in mid-December.

New Glebe eateries

On Bank Street just north of Lansdowne Park, the Indian restaurant Taj Mahal, which opened in 1998, closed last spring. In its place, the Thai restaurant Lotus of Siam opened in mid-December. That restaurant is affiliated with the Siam Bistro on Wellington Street West, which opened in 1989.

Further south in the Glebe, another south Asian restaurant, the six-year-old Last Train To Delhi on Fourth Avenue, closed last summer. Taking over the cozy space, the modern Northern Vietnamese restaurant Co Oi Kitchen opened in late August.

New restaurants on Wellington Street West

The Wellington Street West space that Hintonburg bakery Bread By Us vacated in the fall of 2023 was taken over by the Syrian-owned bakery Solomon’s Oven, which had its grand opening in mid-November. For its part, Bread By Us moved several hundred metres west to Smirle Avenue and re-opened in October 2025.

Also on Wellington Street West, the sandwich shop Smoked Meat Royale opened in July, where juice shop The Juice Monkey had been.

Further west on the street, Ten Sushi, the buffet-style sushi eatery that has two locations in Ottawa, is to open where the veteran grocery store the Herb & Spice Shop was until it closed in 2023.

New restaurants on Richmond Road

In the spring, the restaurant Khao (Street Food Thailand and Bar) opened across from the Great Canadian Superstore on Richmond Road.

On one of Westboro’s prime corners where Richmond Road and Churchill Avenue intersect, the breakfast-lunch-dinner spot Goldfinch opened in early October, replacing the Savoy, a French-inspired bistro.

New restaurants on Carling Avenue

On Carling Avenue near Sherbourne Avenue, the veteran Thai restaurant Silver Spoon closed this fall. Signs in the window indicate that a 3 Brothers Shawarma location serving Halifax-style donairs is coming.

Further east on Carling Avenue, the Lebanese eatery Allo Beirut closed and was soon replaced by Sultan Suleyman Turkish Cuisine, which opened this fall and is likely the newest of a large number of Turkish restaurants that have opened across Ottawa in the last few years. Sultan Suleyman is open around the clock.

New restaurants in Kanata

In March, the staunchly traditional Kuma Takumi Ramen and Japanese Kitchen in Kanata opened its modern, spacious shop in a Hazeldean Road strip mall.

Also in the spring, Saboroso Bistro, which serves Filipino fare, opened in a Kanata South strip mall, sharing space with the beverage store Chicha San Chen.

On Aug. 30, Divan Turkish Cuisine, another recent entry in Ottawa’s proliferation of Turkish restaurants, opened in the Kanata Centrum mall.

On Dec. 11, Bathinda Bites, a 24-hour South Asian vegetarian eatery, opened in a Robertson Road strip mall west of Moodie Drive.

On Dec. 18, Wok & Chop, an eatery specializing in halal Hakka food, which is a South Asian take on Chinese food, opened in Kanata Centrum.

New restaurants in Gatineau’s Hull sector

In the spring, La Petite Primerose, which serves elevated brunches and dinners, opened where the much-admired Edgar had been.

This summer, Mousse opened on Laval Street, where such restaurants as Les Vilains Garçons, Yuzu and Chez Gy had been.

Restaurant comings and goings in Barrhaven

The restaurant Khokha Eatery, which served vibrant Pakistani food since its February 2021 opening, closed in mid-October.

On Dec. 20, a location of the the breakfast and brunch franchise Eggstatic opened in Barrhaven.

phum@postmedia.com

What other new Ottawa restaurants should be on Peter Hum’s radar? Leave your suggestions in the comments below.

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