Grace Giesbrecht

As I climbed the steps to Mehfil Indian Cuisine at 792 Somerset to order takeout on a quickly cooling April evening, the tantalizing smell of classic Indian food hit my nose, and I smiled. There is no smell more comforting to a hungry stomach than that of hot, fresh food. Mehfil Indian Cuisine fuses [...]

It’s not the end of the world, just the end of your marriage! There are dozens of TV shows that centre on every glamorous facet of a wedding. There is only one show, so far, that examines, explains, and, yes, celebrates, divorce. Ottawa influencer and TV producer Katrina Turnbull’s new [...]

New Pho Bo Ga La in Ottawa’s bustling Chinatown at 763 Somerset serves big, delicious flavours in a variety of different Asian cuisines. When I visited on a bright, sunny afternoon unseasonably warm for spring in a Canadian city, I was treated to a big, hot bowl of spicy Thai Tom Kha soup. One [...]

The Yangtze Dining Lounge is a staple of the restaurant scene in Ottawa’s Chinatown. Yangtze has treated its customers to the highest quality service and authentic Szechuan and Cantonese cuisine since opening in its iconic building at 700 Somerset in 1982. With a long menu and plenty to choose [...]

Natalia and Alita, a pair of sisters from Ottawa, opened the Karuna Cafe four years ago to share the Sri Lankan food and culture they love with the world—or, at the very least, with their city. “We love making food,” Natalia said, “And we want people to know about our food.” [...]

Rangoon Restaurant, at 634 Somerset, is very hard to miss: look for bright lime-green porch railings and electric blue accents on a red brick storefront on your next trip through Ottawa’s Chinatown. In the summer, bright flowers will burst from the flower boxes on the patio’s edge and pink [...]

John, co-owner of Spark Beer with his wife Andrea, loves to talk about beer. It’s this passion that led the two to launch Spark Beer, one of Ottawa’s newer craft breweries, in January 2020. The dream behind Spark was a community spot for great, unique beer and good company and got off to [...]

Over 300,000 Canadians are waking up to a new day in sleep with Endy mattresses. The innovative three-layer mattress provides an incredible experience in sleep nation-wide with its innovative design, delivery, and all-Canadian manufacturing process. Best Mattress in Canada Endy is the best mattress [...]

Ottawa-based window covering company Iconic Blinds started up in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We felt as if we were jumping through a ring of fire,” said president Jesse Fernandes. But the jump, so far, has been successful and no one has been burned. Though Iconic Blinds [...]

Introduced last week, the first federal budget in two years is a collection of grand gestures and big spending designed to handle the final waves and impending recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. But one element that will be vital to recovery on both a national and individual level—aid from big [...]