Over the last couple of years I have completed Donair Quests of Calgary, Toronto and Edmonton but you may have noticed that I haven’t touched on Halifax. This is an ambitious task, plighted by a heavy discourse of strong opinions and neighbourhood alliances. The spicysweet truth is that I’ve been researching the donair extensively – interviewing the OGs and shop […]
Last fall I did a Calgary Donair Quest, even though it is really the Edmonton that is known for the the Western Canadian donair. The Edmonton donair dates back to the 1980s which you can read about in this Walrus article: The Donair Wars. Charles Smart was the OG of the Edmonton donair but, alas, it no longer exists. So […]
Did you know that Albertans eat more donairs than anywhere else in Canada? I know, right?! Edmonton, the donair capital of Western Canada, even considered making donair its official food, but it looks like they’ve conceded that it belongs to Halifax. The migration of the donair to Alberta is a mysterious phenomenon but there is a generally assumed connection to Maritime migrants […]
Update 2020: this post was written in 2015, and many of these restaurants have since closed (I have indicated which ones). There is now a Jessy’s Pizza in Toronto, and it doesn’t get more authentic than that. Check them out at 2200 Dundas St W. I recently took a trip to Toronto with my main pursuit being a donair investigation. […]
