Duha Shaar

Duha Shaar is the co-founder of Royal Aleppo Food, a Middle Eastern restaurant in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Duha co-founded the restaurant with her daughter Aya Wadi after their family fled Aleppo, Syria in 2017. After they relocated to Thunder Bay, Duha and Aya participated in the Culture Kitchen program at a local community food organization called Roots to Harvest. The two opened the restaurant in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which was met with great success. Now, Royal Aleppo Food is popular in Thunder Bay for its falafel and baklava, and Duha and her daughter have created an image for the restaurant that is rooted in flavourful food, love, and care. Duha and Aya 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.