There are restaurants that make you feel like you’ve travelled somewhere, and then there are restaurants that seem to have simply picked up and moved that somewhere with them.

Walk into Uncle Carmine’s and, for a moment, you are not in a strip mall parking lot off Ullswater Drive. Sinatra is looking down from the wall, Wynton Marsalis is playing over the speakers, and warm wood runs through the counters and barstools looking out at the parking lot. It is cozy, lived-in and unmistakably New York.

We were there on a Thursday afternoon, and the owner, Les Richenhaller, greeted us by telling us what had already sold out. His favourite sandwich, he said, was the Cubano.

Of course it was sold out.

Instead, we ordered the Big Bambino and the Muffuletta.

The Big Bambino is Montreal smoked meat with Carmine’s pickled vegetable blend, roasted red pepper, dressing and arugula on house-made focaccia. There is plenty of smoked meat, but the sandwich never falls into the smoked-meat-coma category. The pickled vegetables are refreshing, the mustard is just the right amount, and the arugula gives it another little hit of peppery freshness.

I especially liked the vegetable blend. Instead of simply piling on more meat and mustard, it gives the sandwich another layer of flavour and a welcome bit of acidity.

And then there is the bread.

The focaccia is incredibly light and fluffy, with the soft, airy texture you want from great focaccia without becoming heavy. It is the kind of bread that makes you understand why a restaurant would bother making it in-house.

The Muffuletta goes in a completely different direction. Mortadella, provolone, capicola and prosciutto are joined by roasted red pepper, Italian giardiniera, olive tapenade, arugula and other fresh ingredients on that same house-made focaccia.

Danielle immediately went for the olive tapenade. She loved the way it worked with the roasted red pepper, while the vegetables brought a fresh, herby flavour to what could easily have been a very rich sandwich. There was lots of meat without it becoming overwhelming, and a balsamic reduction added another little hit of sweetness and acidity.

“It’s so freaking fresh,” she said.

For me, the sandwich was a reminder of how easy it is for a mortadella, capicola and prosciutto sandwich to become some variation of the same thing: salty, rich and delicious. This one felt different. Every bite had another little pop of flavour.

The sandwiches are familiar. The ideas are not.

And that pretty much sums up Uncle Carmine’s.

Les has spent a long time in the restaurant business. He was the manager of the first-ever Lone Star, the Algonquin location that he says was always jammed, and eventually helped build several more. But eventually, the corporate side became too much.

He wanted something of his own.

He had been working on two other sandwich concepts for two other people when both real estate deals fell through. Then, as Les put it, “Sometimes if you listen things come to you.”

What came to him was Uncle Carmine’s.

Les describes it as the kind of place where Anthony Bourdain would take Frank Sinatra. For a sandwich shop in a strip mall, that is a pretty big claim. Sit down for a while, though, and it starts to make sense.

This place is built around stories.

Les grew up spending summers in Texas, where his uncle introduced him to the food and culture that stuck with him. He remembers coming back to Ottawa in the 1980s and shaking hands with customers, something that could seem pretty strange in a much more conservative Ottawa.

That Texas influence eventually found its way into his restaurants, as did the lessons he picked up along the way.

Uncle Carmine’s was supposed to be a retirement project. Instead, Les says, “This thing has taken my diner and it’s even more on steroids.”

He is everywhere in the restaurant. He talks to customers, explains the food, checks on things and does the work himself. He keeps the staff lean because he says he does the work of two or three people, while putting an emphasis on quality and portion size.

His food costs are higher than they traditionally should be, with beef being the biggest expense. He even puts protein counts on the menu, and says customers are getting about 60 grams over a standard serving.

The quality matters to him.

So does listening to the people who come through the door.

Uncle Carmine’s opened with just one sandwich. Les was happy to let customers tell him what they wanted next, because, as he put it, “I’ve been in this business long enough to tell people to not open with full menus.”

The menu eventually grew from the original four or five sandwich ideas into what it is today.

The neighbourhood has responded. Les told us people even carved a pumpkin with the Uncle Carmine’s logo to welcome the restaurant.

That is the stuff you cannot put on a menu.

Neither can you really plan for the people who walk through the door. Les mentioned having guys from Minnesota and Norway in that very day. They eat, they talk, they become part of the room, and then they leave.

“Place is a vehicle for stories.”

He is right.

You come for a sandwich and end up hearing about Texas, old Ottawa, the restaurant business, the first Lone Star and the real estate deals that never happened. Even the music becomes part of it. You can sit there eating a sandwich while jazz plays overhead, look through the window at a completely ordinary strip mall parking lot and somehow the two things make perfect sense together.

Les told us he wants to keep doing the simplest thing: “just want to keep meeting people and making people happy.”

That might be the whole restaurant.

The sandwiches are not cheap. At around $20 each, you can certainly find cheaper sandwiches in Ottawa that are excellent.

But they are not Uncle Carmine’s.

And they are not made by Les.

You are paying for homemade bread, fresh ingredients, imported Italian meats and combinations that have clearly been thought through. You are also paying for the music, the conversation, the warm wood and the little patio outside.

Most importantly, you are paying for something that could have been just another sandwich shop, but isn’t.

Uncle Carmine’s has been doing this since 2025, and it is the kind of place where you sit down for lunch and end up staying a little longer than you planned. You eat your sandwich, listen to the music, talk to Les and watch people come and go.

Eventually, the parking lot outside stops looking like a parking lot and starts feeling like part of the story.

Maybe that is what Les was trying to build all along: a place for the sandwich, sure, but also a place to meet people, tell stories and make a little bit of New York feel at home in Ottawa.