Ottoman

Always Hungry isn't over - it's just had a bit of a hiatus due to one of the team members being out of town. But now they're back and so are our comments on eating in Canberra...

Last Saturday we had occasion to go celebrate a reasonably significant life-event, and so decided to treat ourselves at somewhere that charges $30 + for mains. We chose Ottoman, a Turkish restaurant in Barton, sitting between the Edmund Barton Building and those office buildings housing the nation's better funded lobbyists of the federal government. Unlike many other Canberra restaurants, Ottoman can be said to be sprawling. Notably, the main dining room also appears to only take up half of the space, with there seeming to be a similar amount of seating spread among a number of private dining rooms, where presumably from Tuesday through Thursday on sitting weeks, the discrete wining and dining elected representatives takes place.

We BYO'd a very nice bottle of Lark Hill Pinot Noir (2004) , and degusted the degustation menu - which was for the most part excellent (as you would hope for $80 a head). Particularly good were the dips and entrees (including a memorable baba ganoush), while the deserts were less exciting. Despite the size of the place, it wasn't uncosy, and the service was flawless.

Overall, extremely competent, without being the-best-place-ever in any distinct sense.