The King Eddy

The King Eddy takes its name from a teenage hangout in Guelph, borrowed by the family and carried across the province to Ottawa's ByWard Market. What it became is a family-owned diner with a serious burger at its centre and very little interest in stopping there. The patties start from a proprietary blend of fresh Canadian beef, never frozen, ground in house every morning — daily labour a burger counter can skip and a diner that means it does not. Breakfast runs all day. Fried chicken holds its own section. A guest can come in for a single plate at eight in the morning or settle in for a long group dinner and find the kitchen working in the same key throughout.

The burger lane is where the kitchen states its case most plainly. The King Eddy Burger is the cleanest read on it: a double cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, red onion, dill pickle, and the house King Eddy sauce, built to let the beef carry rather than bury it. From there the menu gets playful. Eddy's Cure Burger stacks bacon, beef chili, a fried egg, and a small Quebec poutine onto the patty; the patty melt arrives on Texas toast with caramelized onions and American cheese. The other half of the kitchen is Northern Fried Chicken — hand-breaded and turned into a bucket, a sandwich, strips and fries, a spicy Hot Fire build, and NFC and waffles, the plate that walks the line into brunch. Around those two anchors sits the rest of the diner canon: the Eddy Foot Long hot dog, the King Eddy Club, fish and chips, a Kung Pao chicken salad. Sides hold to tradition — Quebec poutine, fried dill pickles with King Eddy sauce, a housemade Pogo corn dog, bechamel mac and cheese, and milkshakes that come spiked on request, the spiked one going by The Dude.