Whether you’re a first-year or a weary senior, you’ll likely have a cursory understanding of the food options on and around campus.
Chief among them is Chef On Call, fast food gone fine dining, but only in price. During Frosh this will serve you well. Very quickly though, you’ll realize that Chef prices are brutally unsustainable. You’ll go further afield, to Alto, or Poke Monster, maybe Poulet Rouge if you’ve got taste. But even those costs will start to add up, and finally, half-starved, you’ll stumble into a Montreal specialty: a shawarma shop, and you’ll realize that reasonably priced protein does exist in this city.
Welcome to Boustan, Shawarmania and Farrouj Express, among others. These will be, if Chef On Call hubris doesn’t consume you, the bastions of your McGill career. More than just being pragmatic options for your wallet, these places are delicious. Try a chicken shawarma, sided by potatoes with garlic sauce at Shawarmania, as a library study break one evening. Flavourful and filling. Be warned though, gum is a requirement if you’re going back to studying (in public) afterwards.
An easy way to tell that these places are great is that they’re growing. Leading the pack is Boustan, a Montreal institution expanding into the US with locations in Florida and New Jersey and more on the way. Boustan has numerous locations near campus, differing both in their design language and (I find) in taste. New locations now have a corporate sheen that is reflected in the food as well, which is somehow less smoky and less fresh. It’s still pretty good. If you’re looking for what I’d consider the best Boust in the city, you have to go to their original location, on Crescent. It’s a small shop compared to
newer locations, but it feels larger in spirit. It’s lovingly adorned with photos of politicians and athletes who dined there in days of yore, and its shawarma remains smoky and fresh in a way that brings you back to those days. This may still be set to change: Emad Saad, the current ruler of the Boustan empire, isn’t today looking to slow down anytime soon, and has recently initiated a major corporate rebrand.
If you’re looking for an up-and-comer that’s gone vertical in the past two years, look east from McLennan and see Shawarmania. It’s a family operation, opened in 2024, that is fresher and more full of vegetables than Boustan. It’s more of a meal and less of a treat. Nowadays, there’ll often be a line, but fear not, it moves quick. In the winter, the double doors open to allow in customers, and with them, a glacial breeze — something loyal Shawarmaniacs will know and appreciate to be worth it.
If you’re looking for an under-the-radar classic, see Farrouj Express. A great pick for students living in New Residence and Metro shoppers alike, it’s fresh and unique in flavour (somehow sweet?). It’s also underground, literally and figuratively. Along with great food, the proprietors offer exceptional community. After only a few times eating there, I was a regular, my name and order memorized.
Don’t take the occasional lines and US expansions as signs of an industry without woes, however. Growing industries are cutthroat, and Big Shawarma is no exception. A friend of mine and fellow industry speculator put it aptly: “It’s tough out there, eat or be eaten right now. In an industry like [shawarma], mistakes mean shuttered doors and boarded windows.” Well said.
The best example of this is the sad demise of Basha, once a darling of the shawarma space. With an outpost just a block from New Residence and a stone’s throw away from the McGill Ghetto, Basha had a clear future. It offered a nearly unbeatable trio deal (shawarma, potatoes beverage) at $9.99. Despite basement-low prices (or perhaps because of them) this Basha now sits empty, not even two years after its One Card-fuelled heyday. Its sign, still visible, serves as a vestige of a simpler time. Basha’s second location near campus, on Sherbrooke, is also shuttered. At this location, there’s no evidence that a Basha ever existed. Its walls have been repainted, its tables redone, now with more glamour. Boustan had arrived.
Zooming out, shawarma in Montreal is special for a few reasons (taste, and variety of choice in every neighbourhood, important among them) but mainly because of how neatly it represents a city that we students all too often see as McGill or not. Shawarma itself (from the Turkish word çevirme, for turning) is an evolution of the Turkish döner, which spread across the Levant in the 1800s. This diaspora, which is particularly concentrated within Canada in Montreal (the city contains more than a third of the country’s Arab population) has brought the practice of shawarma with them. As a senior at McGill, I’ve taken the time recently to open my eyes to the city at large. While doing so, I have been struck by an appreciation for its diversity across languages and customs, and its depth of cultural blending. Shawarma is the paragon of this.
As the city grows colder and more forbidding, look local and find warmth in shawarma. The proprietor will ask if you like it spicy, and if you’d like a drink. Regardless of your answer, you’ll be home.