The best thing about Ontario? Halifax. (2024)

Posted by Michael on Dec 24, 2010 in Recipes | 5 comments

The donair has been much loved and often maligned over the years. I’ve been in both of those camps but more recently I’m most certainly a lover of this East Coast original.

When I first moved to the Maritimes in the late 90s, I had my first introduction this wrap. At first glance it just looks like a heavier, beefier version of a gyro or souvlaki pita but I think this is a sandwich that stands on its own, both with unique flavour and technique, and perhaps most importantly with its own tradition, most notably in the Halifax area.

According to many sources that have researched the history of the donair, the wrap first appeared in Halifax by way of a Turkish immigrant in 1971. Years later it was popular all over the Maritimes and only now is starting to make the trip further west.

It’s a safe bet that the original sandwich was a nice, spicy, rich-tasting sandwich given it’s Mediterranean roots. The originators almost assuredly took pride in the sandwich that they put so much effort into getting the Maritimes (of all places) to embrace.

Nearly 40 years later and about a 20 hour drive from Halifax, you can get the real deal of a donair at Halifax Donair & Pizza in Milton, Ontario. Tucked into a little strip mall at 295 Main Street East in the small town just west of Mississauga, this little business is pumping out donairs the old fashioned way, true to the style of the original sandwich. Started by a couple of guys who are descendants of some of the old school originators of the donair, Halifax Donair is getting the buzz started all over again in a new area of the country.

I stopped in on Christmas Eve for a large donair. Unlike most large donairs I’ve had in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, this truly was a friggin’ (to use Maritime slang) LARGE donair. It was hefty and felt like a good pound while priced at only $8.99 (the typical price I’ve paid back in New Brunswick).

Unlike some joints that just pile meat onto a pita, top with onion and tomato and slop on way too much sauce, this place takes care in how the wrap is made. Once the order is taken, step one is to give the pita a quick dip in a container of water beside the grill, then drain and place on the grill. Doing this gives the donair a notable crispness to the exterior while keeping the interior fluffy moist. Texture here makes all the difference.

The pita is placed on the counter and a bit of sauce is applied. Some onion and tomato go on, then comes the beef.

Just beyond the front counter in full view of hungry customers are two spits, packed with about 50 pounds of beef each that are slowly turning, roasting to a carmelized hue. The meat is shaved and placed on the pita, then more sauce – not too much – is applied and the whole works is expertly wrapped up in foil.

The meat is the star of the show here. At Halifax Donair & Pizza, their meat seems much more peppery than any I’ve had before, which I absolutely love as a total pepperhead. The sweet sauce is there but not overpowering or drenching the rest of the sandwich. And remarkably, the sweet sauce finally makes sense when paired with the super peppery beef here. I’ve often found with other donairs with less-flavourful meats that the sauce ends up tasting more like cake icing than something that would be good with dead cow.