The last time I tried Amir Aghaei’s lamb shank with mushroom risotto and broccolini, I brought it home in a takeout container from his restaurant, Ayla’s Social Kitchen on Preston Street.
I had no other choice. It was the spring of 2020. Ottawa was mired in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Aghaei and his wife Maryam had just opened Ayla’s on March 6 that year, about a week before the shutdown of Ottawa’s dining rooms, as well as basically the world at large.
I liked the food I took home from Ayla’s after it had pivoted to making take-out food. But since then, I never went back to Ayla’s for a post-COVID meal. This spring, six years later, I decided to pay some overdue visits there. Good news: I liked the food served at the cosy, 40-seat, basement-level restaurant, or on its basic, 30-seat, street-level patio, even more than Ayla’s food to go.
Braised lamb shank at Ayla’s Social Kitchen on Preston Street.
On Little Italy’s main drag, Ayla’s specializes in what chef-owner Amir Aghaei, 51, calls “Mediterranean fusion cuisine.” For this civil engineer-turned-chef, all kinds of ingredients and flavours are fair game, even if they aren’t that Mediterranean.
“People ask me, ‘Where is the ancestor of this cuisine?'” says Aghaei. “I say it’s my own cuisine. We don’t have to name a country; we all live together.”
So, on Ayla’s menu, you’ll see not only Mediterranean staples such as sundried tomatoes, Kalamata olives, feta and smoked paprika, but also ajvar, a roasted red pepper relish from the Balkans, and zhoug, a mouthwatering, herby, spicy Yemeni sauce that I wish more restaurants deployed.
Another non-Mediterranean influence on Aghaei’s cooking is Iran. After all, that’s the country that Aghaei left to come to Canada 24 years ago. His homeland is reflected in the pomegranate, saffron and barberry on his menu, as well as in the restaurant’s superior kebabs.
However, Ayla’s should not be confused with more traditional, kebab-focused Iranian restaurants in Ottawa. For one thing, Aghaei offers halal options, but not everything on his menu is halal and wine figures in some of the dishes. Ayla’s also serves various wines, signature cocktails, as well as a few mocktails, spirits, bottled and on-tap craft beers and liqueurs.
The menu is small — a detailed two-pager listing roughly a dozen appetizers, a dozen mains and four desserts. Seeing the compact kitchen next to the dining room, you can understand why Aghaei’s offerings are as curated and constructed as they are.
Dishes are mostly assembled by pairing proteins — some previously cooked and reheated, others cooked to order — with swappable, made-in-advance starches like Spanish rice, spinach and mushroom pearl couscous or saffron and mushroom risotto. In a perfect world, these sides would be freshly made and perhaps a little closer to al dente. But Aghaei’s compromise yields commendably tasty results.
Overall, his best dishes prioritize pronounced but accessible flavours and well-cooked, juicy proteins.
All of Ayla’s kebabs were winners. I lean toward the eponymous and picturesque Ayla’s kebab ($35), which starred pomegranate and herb-marinated striploin, a yogurt pomegranate sauce, saffron-tinged rice and a kale salad with green tahini dressing. But another solid pick that lived up to its name was the tender kebab ($35), made with shavings of marinated hanger steak (aka the hanger tender or butcher’s steak), supported by a significant house-made tomato sauce, Spanish rice, cooling labneh and crunchy strips of fried wonton wrappers.
Ayla’s kebab at Ayla’s Social Kitchen on Preston Street.
Tender kebab main course at Ayla’s Social Kitchen on Preston Street.
One especially nice surprise was the ginger garlic shrimp bowl ($30), a pretty plate that teemed with tasty, succulent shrimp, sitting on spinach and mushroom pearl couscous and bolstered by three distinct and appealing sauces — roasted red pepper, sumac harissa mayo and a mango creme.
Ginger garlic shrimp at Ayla’s Social Kitchen on Preston Street in Ottawa.
If chicken is your go-to, then the “chef’s feature chicken ($31), made with herbed chicken breast and served with wild rice and a peppy mojo verde inspired by Aghaei’s recent trip to the Canary Islands, would be a solid pick.
The only main course I’d skip next time was the Moroccan-style beef brisket ($35). While the dish’s pearl couscous and especially its zingy zhoug were laudable, the beef was dry, as brisket often can be. I told Aghaei this in the spirit of constructive criticism, and he saw it as a challenge worth accepting.
Brisket main course at Ayla’s Social Kitchen on Preston Street.
Many appetizers here are dips made with feta, red lentils, or artichokes and roasted eggplant. We made quick work of the meatiest option — hummus topped with lamb meat, fried eggplant and pine nuts ($24) — because it was that good.
I can also vouch for the simple but luxurious house-made labneh ($18), an assertively lemony strained-yogurt treat topped with olive oil, mint, za’atar, pistachio and pomegranate ringed with crostini and triangles of pita.
House-made labneh at Ayla’s Social Eatery on Preston Street.
We also enjoyed Aghaei’s arancini ($21 for three), because the rice balls were cleanly fried and their parmesan sauce and melted mozzarella interiors made them irresistibly cheesy.
Arancini at Ayla’s Social Eatery on Preston Street.
Desserts made by Maryam Aghaei, who studied pastry-making at Algonquin College, were straightforward and satisfying, including a nicely wobbly, lemony panna cotta ($11) and an espresso Basque cheesecake ($11).
Lemon panna cotta at Ayla’s Social Kitchen on Preston Street.
Espresso Basque cheesecake at Ayla’s Social Kitchen on Preston Street.
Servers were friendly and direct, and Amir Aghaei likes to bring food from his kitchen and interact with customers.
Ayla’s, which is named after the Aghaeis’ daughter, now 12, is the couple’s third business in Ottawa. They had a coffee shop downtown and then a pub in the Glebe. But of Ayla’s, Amir Aghaei says: “This was always my dream.”
He told me that he and his family moved to Australia with the intention of opening their restaurant there. They stayed a month, during which they felt less comfortable than they did in Canada. Before the pandemic, they moved back to Ottawa, where Maryam has relatives, and found the Preston Street space that they turned into Ayla’s.
Amir Aghaei only came to the hospitality business and cooking for a living after losing his engineering job two decades ago. “I read so much about cooking. I travel as much as possible and try so much street food and local food,” he says. “I have a passion about it. I love it, I love food.”
But you would know that just from eating the food he serves at Ayla’s, which speaks for itself.
phum@postmedia.com
Ayla’s Social Kitchen
338 Preston St., 613-762-7297, aylassocial.ca, instagram.com/aylassocial
Amir Aghaei is the owner of Ayla’s Social Kitchen on Preston Street, in his patio space, in 2021.
Open: Sunday snd Tuesday to Thursday 5 to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 5 to 11 p.m., closed Monday
Prices: starters $18 to $24, mains $27 to $35, desserts $11, most cocktails $16
Access: Restaurant is down several stairs, patio is ground-level, but uncovered
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