By Peter Gould
Many think of shopping in Lowertown in terms of the Byward Market, but, in fact, two steps from the Market you are on Dalhousie Street, a vibrant shopping street vital to Lowertown. You can buy a suit at L’Hexagone, take your old suit to be cleaned at Market Cleaners or get it tailored at Mendel Good Custom Tailoring. There is an incredible variety of shopping experiences on Dalhousie Street, ranging from artisanal chocolates at Stubbe Chocolate and Cylie Artisans Chocolatiers to cooking lessons at C’est Bon Cooking. The best dim sum brunch in Ottawa isn’t in Chinatown—it’s on Dalhousie Street at the Palais Royale.
Eat around the world
Perhaps more so than the Byward Market, where the number of restaurants has been declining in recent years, Dalhousie Street features an amazing variety of dining experiences. At Pili Pili, you can enjoy unique African-styled grilled chicken prepared over a maple-wood charcoal grill. At Kochin Kitchen, spice and coconut milk-infused dishes from the South-Indian province of Kerala are served that have garnered outstanding reviews from Ottawa food critics. Only a few blocks away, Shafali serves the classic cuisine of the British-Indian Raj experience. Across the street, Ahora, serving authentic Mexican dishes, shares a building with Pho by Night, specializing in Vietnamese dishes such as delicious and filling Pho soups. Nearby is Hokkaido Sushi, offering the “all-you-can eat” sushi experience. Dunn’s Market Deli offers both traditional Jewish deli items such as smoked meat sandwiches and Canadian diner items such as poutine. Juice recently opened in the former Mello’s location, offering a variety of healthy fresh-squeezed vegetable and juice blends, as well as low-carb and no-carb entrees. Opened in 2014, Kabab Prince is the first Iraqi restaurant in Ottawa.
For java junkies, there are no less than five cafes on Dalhousie, including Bridgehead and Second Cup franchises. Both Bluebird Coffee and Ideal Coffee also offer coffee roasted on the premises. Bluebird Coffee exhibits paintings by local artists and hosts a fortune teller on a weekly basis. A new addition to Dalhousie is Il Perugino Italian Caffe and Bar.
Drinks are on us
Until the 1980s, Dalhousie had a number of raucous taverns. You can still get a beer on Dalhousie, but now it’s a more stylish experience, with European and micro-brewery beers available at Das Lokal and Brothers. Behind the Ma Cuisine store at Dalhousie and Murray streets is Chez Lucien, a neighbourhood pub that has preserved much of the vintage character of its heritage home. A photograph of Irish author James Joyce hangs on the wall, and the bar is the venue for an informal monthly meeting of the Joycean Society of Ottawa. The new Copper Spirit and Sight bar on the 16th floor of the Andaz Hotel offers a breathtaking view of the city. For salsa dance enthusiasts, visit the Petit Peru Restaurant and Disco.
For beauty’s sake
Dalhousie also hosts Ottawa’s beauty supply district, with the Ottawa Beauty Supply Company and Intercosmetics facing one another at the north end of the street. The street is also a major hub for hair care with Salon Rouge, Julian Marc, Texture Hair Salon, Gigi, Mona Reza, The Market’s Barbershop and The Cutting Room all vying for customers. Daya Organic Spa and Smudge offer facials, pedicures and manicures.
In recent years, the epicentre of the Ottawa commercial art gallery scene has moved to the Hintonburg and Westboro area. Nonetheless, Galerie St-Laurent Hill, the largest commercial gallery in Ottawa, asserts a bold presence on Dalhousie with striking work by Canadian artists on display in its immense storefront window.
North Dal
The north end of Dalhousie has become a major hub in Ottawa for women’s fashion by local designers. Sukhoo Sukhoo, which fashion designer Frank Sukhoo opened ten years ago, has been joined by the boutiques Wunder Kammer, Isabelle, Workshop, and Renée Levesque. This summer, Jessica Fraser opened All Dolled Up, offering zany and whimsical fashion items not available anywhere else in Ottawa. To attract more foot traffic to “Dal North” as it’s called, shop owners organize late-night shopping events during the Christmas season, and the City of Ottawa has experimented with pop-up street-side seating during the summer, as well as new traffic control measures.
Traditional Main Street
With its narrow storefronts, the legacy architecture on Dalhousie encourages high-density commercial activity. The low-rise buildings admit daylight onto the sidewalks all year round, and the narrow street tames the speed that cars can travel. In the City of Ottawa Official Plan, Dalhousie is described as a “traditional main street”, meaning that the City of Ottawa is expected to seek the preservation of this low-rise, high-density design. The recent construction of high-rises along Rideau Street and Beechwood Avenue has generated controversy as landlords experience difficulty in finding commercial tenants, other than banks and pharmacies, for the large commercial spaces on the ground floors. For local residents, the reduced number of commercial spaces means that there are fewer stores and, overall, the street no longer functions as well as a traditional main street such as Dalhousie.
As the articles in the Heritage Section attest, change is part of Dalhousie’s DNA, but so, too, is the long tradition of serving the people of Lowertown.
Dalhousie has seen many changes over its many years. Salim Uddin told the Echo that when he opened the Shafali restaurant on Dalhousie in 1996, there were many empty storefronts on the street. Since then, retail occupancy has rebounded significantly. According to Cal Husseini, co-owner of The Cutting Room, over the past 20 years Dalhousie has seen frequent turnover in restaurants and the presence of more homeless people, as well as increased violence late at night mainly linked to the few nightclubs on the street.