Arlo Wine & Restaurant

Wine sits in the name, but at Arlo Wine & Restaurant the kitchen never defers to it. The natural-wine list and the food carry equal weight — a low-intervention bottle and a plate of seasonal Canadian cooking arrive as two halves of the same idea rather than a main event and its accompaniment. The setting is a red-brick house on Somerset Street West, in the stretch where Centretown edges into Chinatown, and the dining room reads more like a confident dinner party than a formal restaurant. Inside, a livelier front gives way to quieter tables toward the back, candlelit and close. That balance of food and wine, polish and ease, is what landed Arlo at forty-ninth on Canada's 100 Best Restaurants in 2025.

The menu is compact and changes with the season, and it rewards a table that orders in rounds. Start among the raw and seafood snacks — Raw Oysters, Arctic Char Tartare brightened with black shallot, radish and mushroom vinegar, or the Cantabrian Anchovy and Lardo Toast that trades on salt and fat. Vegetables get the same attention as the proteins, in plates like Citrus Salad and a Mushroom-Stuffed Courgette. From there the menu moves into bistro mains with a Canadian accent: Duck Frites, its durable anchor, sends a spiced duck brochette out with local greens and green garlic aioli; Bacalao a la Llauna leans Spanish; Beef Tataki arrives with barbecued eel; a Chicken Schnitzel comes paired with escargot; and the Porcini Crusted Ribeye for Two is built as a centrepiece for tables that want one. A separate dessert and digestif list closes things out, the Lemon Posset among them. Whatever the round, the staff steer the glass or bottle to match it.