The Menu That Never Changes

There’s a certain comfort in a dish that never leaves. The one the servers describe like a reflex, the one diners return for as though it were a friend still working the same shift. But comfort, in restaurants, can be a kind of inertia.

Ottawa has its share of lifers — the signature dish that outlives three sous chefs and two dining room redesigns. Sometimes it’s loyalty. Sometimes it’s fear. Sometimes it’s the spreadsheet saying, don’t touch the thing that sells.

But food, at its best, should move. It should respond. To season, to staff, to what’s happening outside the kitchen door. A menu that never changes is a playlist stuck on repeat — still beautiful, maybe, but no longer listening.

The irony is that most chefs don’t even love their signature dishes anymore. They just respect them, like an old colleague you still nod to across the room. To remove it would feel almost cruel. To keep it is to admit that innovation has limits when nostalgia pays the bills.

Maybe the most interesting restaurants now are the ones willing to kill their darlings. To let go of what worked and see if something else can. Because evolution is the point — and the menu that never changes might as well be a museum wall.