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- Lots of talent, and room for improvement, at new French bistro Elise
Lots of talent, and room for improvement, at new French bistro Elise
It's always good when new French bistros appear in Ottawa. So how did Elise do?


Elise oyster mushrooms. Ralf Joneikies/Ottawa Lookout
Name + address: Elise, 381 B Winona Ave.
Type of food: Bistro
Appetizers: $7-$24
Mains: $26-$45
Diet: Meat, seafood, vegetarian
Wheelchair accessibility: Yes
Licensed: Yes
Website: www.eliseottawa.ca
Elise is the newest French bistro to arrive in Ottawa. For those who love French dining, it’s a welcome development that we have another destination for our cravings.
The rooms evoke the spirit of La Belle Epoque (Art Nouveau) and it makes for a comfortable and calming ambience. The music and its volume, however work against the design. Rather than contemporary club sounds, a little Django Reinhardt would be a welcome, and appropriate respite.

Elise. Ralf Joneikies/Ottawa Lookout
The design also reminded me of the explosion of fantastic avant-garde that grew out of the era. It was a time of experimentation and new beginnings for the world of art.
Painters like Picasso moved into their Blue, Rose, Fauve and Cubist periods upending the ordinary viewer's perception of what constituted “Art”. People of the time could be forgiven for not remembering that Picasso also knew how to paint the human form and landscapes, an essential part of any artist's evolution. We’ll come back to that.
With a break of several weeks between visits, I was eager to see if any changes had been implemented in that time and indeed the prix fixe menu did have a few rotations. The fries had also undergone a change in how they’d been fried, albeit with only marginal success.

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