Heist wants to be everything. Does it succeed?

How is “identity” defined when we’re talking about restaurants? Generally, we think of it as the cuisine: Italian, French, Greek etc.

Sometimes, certain cuisines can form a natural fusion due to the geographical proximity of the nations involved. Think Hakka cuisine (India-China) or those restaurants that offer Thai, Laotian and Vietnamese dishes.

What do we make of a restaurant that offers diners a mix of Asian-inspired dishes, standard pub fare, and even vodka sauce rigatoni?

Heist has an identity crisis, but it’s the kind of place where identity isn’t the point. The point is to be all things to all potential diners, with pricing to make you think you’re getting something elevated.

Then again, our server did mention that they had the “United Nations” working in their kitchen. So there’s that.

While they come in frozen but unseasoned, the server did say their wings were highly regarded. You can choose from six housemade sauces. I went with Whisky BBQ and the sauce turned out to be quite good.

I learned, after the fact, that they’d been breaded. Honestly, I didn’t think to ask if these were “pub style”. The flats were lightly breaded and crisp. The drumette portion had much thicker breading, which didn’t allow the remaining wing fat to render properly. Unfortunately, it was about as pleasant as eating grocery store frozen wings from the Janes brand.

The smoked heirloom tomato and grilled halloumi salad was a clear winner. It came colourfully and attractively presented with the freshest of ingredients. 

I had reservations about the use of the word "heirloom" when describing the tomato. To my delight, it had been lightly smoked, the entire thing had been built on a foundation of a favourite green: frisée. 

The blueberries and strawberries, along with the mango gel, were a lovely sweet counterpoint to the bitterness of the greens and the salt of the cheese. A very appetite-stimulating way to start.

My lunch companion ordered the braised short rib sandwich and it was one for the books. 

She chose to have the Caesar salad rather than the accompanying fries. The salad was unique in its construction. Baby romaine had been used and chopped into cubes (a little like a wedge salad) and dressed in a pleasant pistachio Caesar dressing.

Rather than bits of bacon, the kitchen had dotted the salad with a bacon jam that didn’t satisfy texturally and was just too sweet. 

The sandwich came on excellent sourdough but was terribly meagre for the price of $30 with fries. I had a quarter of it, which held a single strand of pulled beef and a very sweet braising sauce. 

Neither our server nor the menu indicated there would be a salad substitution charge of five dollars. Total for this dish…$35.  In all my years of dining, I’ve never felt more ridiculed.

Things were looking up with the fish and chips. While the chips were more like fries, I would have preferred a traditional British style of chips. If they weren’t to double-fry the potatoes, at the very least, they could have blanched them before frying. A double-cook process improves both texture and flavour. These were just standard fare.

The cod was sweet and delicious. It had been cooked from a fresh state, the batter airy, light and sublimely crisp. However they managed it, I’ve never had a more perfectly executed piece of fried fish in the Ottawa-Gatineau region.

The housemade tartar sauce was superb. It’s this dish that I would return for, minus the “chips”.

We finished with a Roche Noir dessert that certainly made an impression in terms of presentation.

Layers of chocolate and coffee flavours of varying density sat high on a “caramelized nut base”. Understandably, I was expecting hazelnuts. Instead, this was a walnut base with the occasional rancid nut thrown in. Walnuts never pair well with either chocolate or coffee. 

It was an otherwise well-constructed dessert marred by a bad choice.

I always prefer a dessert made with fruit, and here the server made a kind gesture by bringing me a small bowl of berries.

If you go, you’ll find Heist an attractive room with affable, attentive service. The wine list, while modest and rife with typos, has my respect. I wasn’t expecting to see names like Jean-Luc Colombo (France), Nautilus Estate (New Zealand) and Renato Ratti (Italy). Not rarities but certainly aimed at people who know something about wine.

It is this that makes the experience all the more confusing. You have a wine list with purpose and focus, but the menu is all over the place with clear hits and misses.

If, for whatever reason, they can’t lower prices, the emphasis needs to be on a tighter menu and on what the kitchen can execute consistently and well. 

Drop those items that don’t work to eliminate food waste and costs. There’s enough good here to ensure success for the long term, and Heist might want to use its wine list as the light to show the way.