Briana Kim is Ottawa's big winner on Canada's 100 Best

Acclaimed chef Briana Kim recently opened Antheia on the second floor of a building in Ottawa's Chinatown neighbourhood. Photo by TONY CALDWELL /POSTMEDIA

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Ottawa chef Briana Kim is the city’s breakout star on the just-released 2026 Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants list.

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Though the overall standing of the capital’s dining scene fell in this year’s edition of the highly regarded national rankings. Released on May 4, the list includes just three Ottawa restaurants, down from four last year.

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Kim’s new restaurant Antheia ranked 76th on the list, opening very late in 2025, on Dec. 7, which gave the list’s judges less than a month to visit it and consider it for their ballots. Her cutting-edge, vegetarian restaurant in Chinatown seats just 12 guests at its counter and four more at tables.

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The 12-seat chef’s counter is where the action is at Antheia on Somerset Street West. Photo by TONY CALDWELL /POSTMEDIA

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“I have heard great things” about Antheia, said Jacob Richler, Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants’ editor-in-chief and publisher.

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” I imagine she (Kim) will do extremely well on the list next year. We will do everything we can to draw attention to the quality of what she’s doing in the meantime,” he said.

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On June 17, Kim is to take part in an exclusive Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants collaborative dinner in Quebec City with the chefs of Restaurant Pearl Morissette and Tanière3, the latter of which is hosting. Restaurant Pearl Morissette in Jordan Station, Ont., is ranked first on this year’s list, while Tanière3 is ranked third. Those restaurants are the only two in Canada that currently have two Michelin stars.

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Kim was also this year’s winner of the community leadership award.

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“Briana caught our attention not just for the quality of what she does, but because after closing Alice,” — Kim’s restaurant in Little Italy that preceded Antheia — “she had so many opportunities elsewhere,” said Richler.

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“Nonetheless she decided to begin her next chapter at home in Ottawa, which we see as giving something back to your community as opposed to taking what you can get and moving on,” he said.

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Self-taught as a chef, Kim studied political science at the University of Ottawa and worked at Health Canada before becoming a chef and restaurant-owner more than 15 years ago. In 2009, she opened the restaurant Cafe My House on Bank Street, which later moved to Hintonburg. After closing Cafe My House, Kim opened the fancier restaurant Alice in 2019 in Little Italy. An innovative, plant-based, fermentation-forward restaurant, Alice was ranked 31st on the 2023 Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants list. That year, Kim won the Canadian Culinary Championship. She closed Alice in February 2024 to work toward opening Antheia, which she sees as the fullest expression of her culinary vision.

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Richler said that given Antheia’s opening date, it should be eligible for next year’s Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants list of best Canadian new restaurants.

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“For someone who opens in November or December, it’s not really fair to be judged against people who opened in January,” he said. “I think next year we’ll make an allowance for Briana and see how she does on that list too.”

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The two other Ottawa restaurants on this year’s list are chef Marc Lepine’s tasting restaurant, Atelier in Little Italy, which ranked 54th, down from 41st last year, and the Centretown fine-food-and-wine haunt Arlo, which ranked 77th this year, dropping from 49th in 2025.