SemSem

SemSem takes its name from the Arabic word for sesame, and at this Bank Street address the seed is less a flourish than the organizing principle of the whole menu. It turns up in the breads and the kaak, in the dips and the sweets, even in the coffee, giving a Palestinian and Levantine kitchen a sharper focus than the broad all-day Middle Eastern label usually carries. SemSem cooks breakfast, brunch, and early lunch in Ottawa's South Keys stretch of Bank Street, and the doors close by four — a morning-and-midday restaurant by design, built around family recipes instead of a sprawling dinner card.

The bread program is where that focus shows up first. The Cheese Sunflower is the signature: a soft, pull-apart loaf shaped like its namesake, baked fresh and filled with halloumi, thyme, and sesame, meant to be torn apart across a shared table. Around it sits a real bakery — Kaak Al'Quds, the ring-shaped Jerusalem sesame bread, and Majdoul beside it, so the loaves read as a category rather than a single trick. The fatteh is the other centre of gravity. Fatteh Tahini with Meat layers toasted pita, chickpeas, and tahini into something closer to a main course than a starter, and the kitchen runs the same idea through Fatteh Yogurt, Eggplant Fatteh, and Fattet Al'Quds. Savoury pastries fill out the table — the Popie Spinach and Halloumi Pie, the Sojok Sunflower — and the drinks keep the theme honest, from the spiced karak of the SemSem Drink to a house coffee that carries the same warmth back into the meal.