Ottawa's Favourite Restaurant Critic Is More Than Just a Food Guy
Ottawa has no shortage of people who love to eat out. But Peter Hum — the city's best-known restaurant critic — has turned that love into a career, a creative outlet, and a lens through which he explores culture, memory, and the world at large.
A recent profile in Capital Current paints a portrait of a man whose appetite extends well beyond the plate. Hum's life is defined by four great passions: food, jazz, travel, and family history — each one feeding the others in ways that might surprise readers who know him only from his restaurant reviews.
Fork in One Hand, Trumpet in the Other
For anyone who has followed Hum's writing, it may not come as a total surprise that music runs deep in his world. Jazz, in particular, has long been a companion to the dining experience — both art forms reward patience, improvisation, and a willingness to sit with something long enough to truly taste it.
Hum's connection to jazz isn't just aesthetic. It's personal, a thread woven through his identity in much the same way that food has been.
Eating His Way Around the World
Travel, too, plays a central role in Hum's story. Ottawa may be his home base — and the city's restaurant scene, his beat — but the table he writes from has been shaped by meals eaten far from the ByWard Market or Chinatown on Somerset Street West.
For food critics, travel is research. Every bowl of ramen in Tokyo, every taco in Mexico City, every slow-roasted lamb dish in a family-run Greek taverna recalibrates the palate and sharpens the critical eye. Hum brings all of that accumulated experience back to Ottawa, applying a global perspective to local dining in a way that elevates the conversation around the city's food culture.
Tracing Family Roots
Perhaps the most intimate of Hum's passions is his interest in family history — a pursuit that speaks to questions of identity, belonging, and the stories we carry across generations. It's a thread that connects neatly to food, after all: so much of what we eat is inherited, tied to where we came from and who raised us.
For Hum, digging into family history isn't just a hobby. It's another form of storytelling.
Why Ottawa Should Be Paying Attention
Ottawa's restaurant scene has matured enormously over the past decade, and critics like Hum have been part of that story — documenting openings and closings, championing local chefs, and holding the city's dining room to a higher standard.
His longevity in the role speaks to something rare: genuine curiosity. He hasn't gone through the motions. He's stayed hungry — literally and figuratively — and Ottawa's food culture is richer for it.
Whether you follow him for the restaurant recommendations, the jazz knowledge, the travel dispatches, or simply the good writing, Peter Hum is one of Ottawa's most interesting cultural figures. And if you haven't read the Capital Current profile yet, it's worth your Sunday morning.
Source: Capital Current
