It may have been tongue in cheek for city council to designate Ottawa the “Shawarma Capital of Canada” in a 2024 motion, but the title speaks to a deeper trend: immigrant cuisines are influencing Ottawa’s cultural identity, even as discrimination against immigrant communities grows.
There are nearly 200 shawarma restaurants around the city, and they’re joined by clusters of Thai, Ethiopian, Indian and Turkish eateries downtown. When people in the capital want to learn recipes from these cultures, however, Ottawa-based chef Tara Rajan says options are limited.
“There aren’t a lot of places you can go in Ottawa to learn how to make Turkish food or Indian food, or any of these kinds of food,” says Rajan, who has taught cooking classes for the Ottawa catering company Urban Element since 2011. “I think for a lot of people they really like what they are trying and they want to know more, this is a way for them to deepen their knowledge of the cuisine
Rajan uses class time to talk about the cultural context of the dishes and about how people appropriate culture through food. At her most recent course, she started the class by explaining that bulgur is a parboiled wheat staple in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cooking before giving a hands-on demonstration.
In an intimate kitchen, where she oversees chopping, mixing and plating, she showed home cooks how to make a Turkish comfort dish: grilled lamb koftas on a bed of eggplant puree, and bulgur salad drizzled with a tangy pomegranate vinaigrette.
It’s a form of cultural transmission that the federal Multiculturalism Act formally recognizes as central to the nation’s identity and that guarantees every citizen the right to preserve and share their heritage.
But as Rajan’s kitchen thrives, police-recorded hate crimes are on the rise.
Combating stereotypes through cooking
Hate crimes increased by 32 per cent in 2023, the third sharp increase in four years, according a Statistics Canada report found. Hate crimes against South Asians climbed 227 per cent between 2019 and 2023, making them the third most targeted group after Black and Arab Canadians, according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD).
The institute also found that, in the lead-up to the 2025 federal election, online hate speech directed at Indian and Sikh communities generated more than 1.2 million engagements across major social media platforms.
Imrun Texeira, an award-winning chef based in Toronto, says that advocating for multiculturalism isn’t optional right now. Rather, it’s necessary to protect the fabric of Canadian identity.
“When there’s fear or hostility toward immigrant populations, food becomes one of the most powerful tools to counter it,” says Texeira. “Sharing a meal creates a human connection that breaks down stereotypes.
“Growing up as the first-born Canadian in an immigrant household, I was constantly navigating questions of identity and belonging. Food became my way of understanding both where I came from and where I was.”
That belief in food’s power to bridge divides is reflected locally in the work of chefs like Joe Thottungal. Originally from Kerala, India, Thottungal arrived in Canada in 1998, but found few Indian restaurants. This encouraged him to open Coconut Lagoon in 2004, followed by Thali in 2018.
“I kept my Indian tradition because it is very important when you make a dish to connect your taste to the memories of your childhood.”
Thottungal has received national recognition for his work, including the Order of Ottawa and multiple culinary championship medals, but he also uses food to connect with local communities outside the kitchen. He regularly prepares meals for shelters such as Shepherds of Good Hope and contributes to local fundraisers.
He says much of his success comes from giving back to the community that openly welcomed him.
“For us, it’s a gratitude,” Thottungal says. “It’s our duty to give back what they gave us, the better living that this country gave us.”
Food reshapes the conversation
While Thottungal brings multiculturalism to the dinner table, digital storytellers are mapping Ottawa’s hidden culinary gems.
Ameya Charnalia, co-founder of the Eat the Strip blog and a member of Ottawa’s Indian community, says he has seen a recent rise in anti-Indian sentiment and hostility towards minorities. He says his work counters that negative attention by spotlighting immigrant-run eateries.
“What we’re trying to be a part of is swimming against that current of hate to get people to really sit down, listen and connect with one another. The most important weapon we have in our arsenal is food,” Charnalia says.
Charnalia says he created the blog because the eateries he covers, which are often tucked in to strip malls and industrial zones, don’t appear regularly in mainstream food media.
I realize every time I start my work here that my family and thousands of Palestinian families in Gaza and the West Bank as well, are suffering. And they have a lack of food and clean water, electricity and gas. You prepare all that food and your heart is sad.
Raed AlQedra, Cheese and Olives chef and Owner
One of the restaurants featured on the blog is Cheese and Olives, a Palestinian eatery near South Keys and the fourth eatery opened by Raed AlQedra. He draws on his upbringing in Gaza to make dishes like qedra rice, which he says always reminds him of time with his parents from when he was a boy.
But the catastrophe in his homeland has done more than deepen his nostalgia. They’ve reshaped how he thinks about food and purpose.
“I’m sure millions of people now are aware of what’s going on in Palestine […] but what’s going on there definitely has affected my life and way of thinking. When I did those first restaurants, I was not thinking this way. This one came with the situation,” AlQedra says.
AlQedra says there is always food for anyone who walks in and is unable to pay. This open-door policy is his way of repaying Canada’s generosity, even as he wrestles with the knowledge that his own family in Gaza faces hunger and displacement, he says.
“I realize every time I start my work here that my family and thousands of Palestinian families in Gaza and the West Bank as well, are suffering,” AlQedra says. “And they have a lack of food and clean water, electricity and gas. You prepare all that food, and your heart is sad.”
Ottawa’s restaurants do more than serve food, AlQedra suggests. They mirror the complexities of global events and local communities. “Each dish has a story to it.”
