70 / 30. Arabica to robusta, from a Swiss roaster with a century behind it. Chosen for the cup, not the invoice.
The blend behind every espresso we pull.Our story
A new name for the same house.
You have known us as BB Cafe Ottawa. We are Crema House now: the same corner of Clyde Avenue, the same family, the same hands on the espresso machine. This page is the whole of it, told plainly, and what it means for your cup.
The corner.
Clyde Avenue is not where Ottawa expects to find a pasticceria. It is a working stretch of Nepean, with a car wash on one side and a parking lot in front. That is part of the point. People come here on purpose, and they come from everywhere: Persian families on a Sunday afternoon, office workers from the buildings behind us, students with a laptop and one long latte, grandparents who have found the only place in the city that still makes a proper cream puff.
Within a year of opening, the Ottawa Citizen had written about the pistachio, the saffron and the pomegranate, and CTV's Your Morning had come to film the counter live. We were glad of both. But what we noticed most was quieter than that. The same faces kept coming back, at the same hour, for the same thing. A café is only ever the sum of those habits. We wanted to be worth them.
What changed behind the counter.
For our first year this corner traded as BB Cafe Ottawa, part of a family of cafés that began in the Toronto area in 2009. It gave us a start, and we are grateful for it.
But a year behind a counter teaches you what you actually believe. Item by item, we found ourselves wanting to make more of it here. A croissant that once arrived in a box became one laminated in our own kitchen before six in the morning. Bread we used to order became barbari pulled from our own oven, still warm when the door opens. Cookies became our cookies. The coffee moved to a blend we tasted and chose, rather than one that came with the arrangement.
By this summer, everything on the counter was either made in this kitchen each morning or chosen by us and no one else. At that point the name on the door was the last thing that was not ours.
When everything on the counter was ours, the name had to be too.
So we changed it. Not because anything was wrong with the old one, but because a name should tell the truth about what is behind it. Crema House does. Nothing about the room, the family or the standard has moved. The sign outside will catch up over the coming months. The coffee already has.
Why Crema
The foam that proves the shot.
Crema is the hazelnut-coloured layer that forms on an espresso when it has been pulled properly: fresh beans, the right grind, the right pressure, the right nine seconds. It cannot be faked and it cannot be bought. It is simply what appears when the work has been done right. We wanted a name that held us to that.
House because everyone who walks in understands it. Persian, Canadian, Indian, Chinese: a house is a place you are welcome to sit in for a while. An Italian word and an English one, which is exactly what this room is: an Italian standard, an Ottawa address, and people from everywhere.
Caffè & Pasticceria: a coffee bar and a pastry kitchen, under one roof.
The threshold.
Our mark is a doorway. Not a cup, not a bean, not a leaf: the arch of a door with its step at the bottom. In Italian it is called la soglia, the threshold, and it is the moment we care most about, the one where you come in from Clyde Avenue and the room takes over. Take away the step and the shape falls apart, which is true of hospitality as well.
Everything else in the house is drawn the same way, one solid shape with one fine cut: the layered cake, the cream pastry, the espresso cup, the tea leaf. You will find them on the menu, on the boxes and on this website. It is a small discipline, but small disciplines are the whole job.
The house standard.Four things we will not move on.
Baked here, every morning, in this kitchen. Not delivered, not thawed, not bought from someone who bought it from someone else.
Croissants, barbari, Danish, cakes and cookies.Smoothly sweet, never cloying. The one standard Italian and Persian pastry share, and the one most counters have given up on.
Pistachio, saffron and hazelnut, in proportion.Chosen by us. Where we do not make a thing ourselves, we pick it, taste it, and put our name beside it.
Nuts, dried fruit, chocolate, tea.Two traditions, one standard.
This is not an Italian café pretending, and it is not a Persian one either. It is a room where both are at home because they agree on the thing that matters: pastry should taste of what it is made from, and stop before it becomes sugar. Cannoli beside latifeh. Tiramisù beside saffron cake. An espresso for one person and a pot of black tea for the table beside them, each made the way it should be.
If you grew up with one of these, you will find it done properly. If you grew up with neither, you will find the other one waiting, and someone at the counter glad to explain it.
What stays, and what changes.For anyone who has been coming a while.
Stays
- The corner14-1400 Clyde Avenue, Nepean. Same door, same windows, same table by the window.
- The peopleThe same family owns the house and the same hands are on the machine and in the kitchen.
- Your favouritesPistachio, saffron and pomegranate are still the flavours the house is known for.
- Hours and phoneThe hours have not moved. Neither has (613) 422-5924.
- Your rewardsPoints earned at the counter carry on as CremaClub, with the same tiers.
- Your reviewsOur Google listing is the same one you have been writing on. It is simply changing its name.
Changes
- The nameCrema House, Caffè & Pasticceria. The sign outside catches up over the coming months.
- What is on the counterEverything is made here each morning, or chosen by us and no one else.
- The coffeeA Swiss-roasted blend of 70% arabica and 30% robusta, chosen for the cup rather than the invoice.
- The websitecremahouse.ca, with the whole menu, table bookings and online ordering for pickup.
- The emailottawa@cremahouse.ca for catering, cakes and anything else.
- The markA doorway. You will see it on the cups, the boxes and the door itself.
Come in.
The door is the same one. Come through it for a morning espresso, an afternoon that lasts, a whole cake with a day's notice, or a table for ten. We will be behind the counter, where we have always been.
The family at Crema House
Clyde Avenue, Ottawa