Aya Wadi

Aya Wadi is the co-founder of Royal Aleppo Food, a Middle Eastern restaurant in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Aya co-founded the restaurant with her mother Duha Shaar after their family fled Syria in 2017 and relocated to Thunder Bay. The mother-daughter duo launched Royal Aleppo Food in 2020 after they participated in the Culture Kitchen program at a local community food organization called Roots to Harvest. Royal Aleppo Food prides itself on making flavourful food with love and care. The restaurant is popular among its customers for its falafel and baklava. Aya and her mother are two of fourteen newcomers whose recipes are featured in a cookbook called Tastes from Home: Recipes from the Refugee Community, which was published by the United Nations Refugee Agency in 2020.