Ottawa’s love affair with shawarma: Exposed

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A shawarma platter from Shawarma Palace on Rideau Street / Priscilla Hwang
A shawarma platter from Shawarma Palace on Rideau Street / Priscilla Hwang

Ottawa – also known as the shawarma capital of Canada.

For many Canadians, the trips in and out of the capital are defined by their love affair with the succulent platter of freshly carved Middle Eastern meats and roasted potatoes dripping with the oils of garlicky goodness.

Oh Canada.

“There’s a smorgasbord of options,” says Justin Mathews, a recent convert to what he calls the ‘shawarma religion’ of Ottawa. “It’s not often I throw around the word orgasmic, but I’d say this is one of those moments.”

The obsession and hype over this Lebanese-style meat platter brands the food scene here.


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But what shawarma lovers don’t know is that in 2014, there was a record high number of food safety violations in Ottawa’s shawarma restaurants in seven years.

According to an analysis of Ottawa Public Health’s restaurant inspections data, there was more than an 80 per cent increase in violations in 2014 than from the previous year.

In fact, there were more health violations in 2014 than in 2012 and 2013 combined.

Donna Casey, spokeswoman for Ottawa Public Health says that it is difficult to determine an increase in violations for any given year. “Inspections of thousands of food premises in Ottawa are a snapshot in time of food safety conditions,” she says. Increases may also be due to an increase in Shawarma locations in the city.

The good news is that the most common violation among the restaurants in 2014 were non-food related. Non-food surfaces like ceilings, walls and equipment were not cleaned and maintained.

However, more critical food-related violations followed closely after.


In eleven cases, sanitization and hygiene products were unused and unavailable while cooking and dishwashing in 2014. This was the third biggest violation.

There were six cases of bad hygiene of the workers handling food and six cases of food being left unprotected from potential contamination and adulteration.

The shawarma joint with the most inspection violations in 2014 was Shawarma’s King on Bank Street with 21 violations, followed by Castle Shawarma on Rideau Street with 19.

At Shawarma’s King, inspectors found two violations where the food was exposed and not protected from contamination, and one violation of not separating raw-foods from ready-to-eat foods in storage and in handling.

It had one of the highest fines for health violations back in 2004, as reported by the Ottawa Citizen.

Evan Thornton, a regular restaurant reviewer on the mobile reviewing app Foursquare, called his experience at Shawarma’s King “gross” back in 2014.

“The bread was really dry and the meat was grisly,” he says. “I couldn’t finish it.”

But the owner of Shawarma’s King Ali Haraidi says that giving customers good service and clean conditions is a priority.

“Inspectors want everything to be perfect,” says Haraidi. “If he gives a notice, we fix it right away within 24 hours.”

Thornton says that it could have been an off-day for the restaurant. But since then, he says he’s only gone to one shawarma restaurant that he trusts – Shawarma Palace.

Mathews agrees. Mathews became a “believer” in September when he moved to Ottawa for a new job.

On his first night here, Mathews was turned off by an unsatisfactory shawarma experience that he calls “awful and upsetting.” The restaurant was on Bank Street. “It nearly set me off shawarma. Thank God I went to the Palace.”

Shawarma Palace on Rideau Street placed sixth on the list with ten violations in 2014. Some inspection violations included using unclean water for mechanical dish washing, and foods not being refrigerated or frozen enough to prevent growth of harmful bacteria.

Mathews’ disappointment was redeemed by the Palace which he calls “the mecca of shawarma.”

But unlike Mathews, not all first timers found redemption in shawarma city.

Molly Wright decided to try shawarma this past spring for the first time. After starving for hours because of work, she decided to try what she calls “a little sketchy restaurant off of Merivale.”

“A few hours later, bussing home, I had to get off the bus and puke my whole stomach out,” says Wright.

Hers was the romance that never was. She never touched a shawarma again.

But as shawarma city’s devout believer Mathews explains, there is a consequence to quantity. “With so many shawarma joints, there are bound to be a few bugs – pun unfortunately intended.”

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