About Us

In 1990, our food store and catering services were inspired by the food shops of New York and the emerging regional seasonal trend in cooking that had been the foundation of French cooking but was now making its way from California across North America. In the past fifteen years Epicuria has championed this approach with its seasonal offerings of soups, dinners, pastries and more and has worked closely with suppliers to source the best possible ingredients.

Along this journey, not only have we offered a modern approach to take-home cuisine and catering, we have sought to develop a new kind of catering and retail food business that offers unsurpassed quality, service and convenience. We pride ourselves in providing a product that not only tastes and looks good, but is always fresh, easy to use and available when you need it.



Tracey Black

Raised by hunters and gatherers in the lower mainland of British Colombia, Executive Chef, Tracey Black was introduced to regional seasonal cuisine from day she was old enough to help in the family garden, catch, clean and smoke salmon and use a pressure cooker without ill effect. A career as a chef was not what she had in mind when she graduated from the University of Victoria with a BA in anthropology, but a chance opportunity to work in the galley of a ship in northern British Columbia led her to the classrooms of both the Cordon Bleu Paris School of Cooking and the Stratford Chef School.

Hired 15 years ago at Epicuria to make sandwiches, it did not take long before she was managing the kitchen and marveling at the culinary opportunities of quality take-home food and catering. A love for food, design and business naturally led to becoming a partner and further developing Epicuria into one of Ottawa's finest food establishments and caterers. In 2009, Tracey became sole proprietor of Epicuria. Her work has been recognized in numerous publications and in 2003 she was named one of Ottawa's top 40 under 40 business people.

With a young family at home, two Weimeraners and Grand Prix dressage horse Kandinsky, Tracey fully takes advantage of the conveniences of Epicuria's take-home food.