Food Critics Without Critics

Ottawa doesn’t have critics anymore. It has cheerleaders. It has comped dinners written up as glowing Instagram reels. It has copy-and-paste “Top 10” lists with the same five restaurants shuffled like a deck of cards. But a critic? Someone who actually eats, judges, and risks saying something unpopular? Gone.

The Citizen doesn’t cover food with any seriousness. Ottawa Magazine is dead. The local influencers—let’s be honest—aren’t going to tell you Riviera phoned it in, or that North & Navy had an off night, or that Perch is all concept with nothing on the plate. They’ll post the martini glass, smile for the camera, and move on to the next invite.

And so the city loses its mirror. No one calls bullshit when the “seasonal menu” is just the same five safe dishes with a rhubarb garnish in spring and squash purée in fall. No one says that half the dining rooms in town are serving food that looks like it was assembled for an Instagram story instead of a human appetite. No one points out that some of Ottawa’s “finest” aren’t actually innovating—they’re coasting.

Without real criticism, Ottawa’s restaurants are left in a vacuum. Diners don’t get context, only hashtags. Chefs don’t get pressure, only likes. The conversation about what food here means goes silent. And silence is dangerous, because it’s how mediocrity becomes the default.

So who fills the gap? Maybe the critics now are the chefs themselves—anonymous, blunt, willing to say out loud what everyone else whispers after service. Because if Ottawa won’t be critiqued from the outside, it has to critique itself. Otherwise we’ll keep serving the same lukewarm narratives, plated with a smear of aioli, and calling it culture.