Arab and Levantine communities of the GTA: a food map

The GTA's Arab and Levantine population, by reported origin

A note on how to read what follows, because precision matters: these are response counts from the 2021 Census — the number of people who reported a given origin among their ethnic or cultural origins — not a simple headcount of individuals. A person can report more than one origin, so the rows below are not mutually exclusive and don't sum to a single population total. And these figures are specifically for the Toronto CMA, the wider census metropolitan area, not the City of Toronto alone — a distinction worth holding onto, since the two describe different geographies.

One more clarification the table deserves: Turkish origin is neither Arab nor, strictly speaking, Levantine — Türkiye is its own nation with its own language and traditions. It appears here because southeastern Anatolia shares the food geography this catalogue draws from, Gaziantep especially, and because Turkish grocers and bakeries sit alongside Arab ones in the same GTA plazas. Including the count is a food-map choice, not an ethnic claim.

The food map: origin, tradition and supplier house

Each of these communities carries a culinary tradition worth naming on its own terms — and where it's honestly relevant, that same tradition is the one our supplier houses work in, sourced at origin rather than through the GTA itself. The connection is culinary lineage, not a claim that any GTA community member is behind these products.

The Palestinian culinary tradition is built around the olive, the mill and za'atar as a daily staple — a thread that runs directly to AbdulRahim Mills, a Palestinian-heritage house milling za'atar and spices in Jordan. Damascus cuisine — layered sweets, halawa, maamoul worked by hand — connects to two houses at once: Ibrahim Srour, pressing halawa to Damascus tradition, and Hamdan, making maamoul and sweets from the same origin. Gaziantep, in Türkiye's southeast, is famous across the region for its pistachio and pepper cuisine and its exacting pickling and preserving craft, the tradition Zer carries. Aleppo's soap-making craft — laurel oil worked into olive oil soap over months of curing — is the tradition behind Nader Barakat's soap. And Syria's Mediterranean coast, around Latakia, brings a different register — olive oil and cardamom coffee suited to a coastal table — carried by Lio.

Iraqi and Egyptian culinary traditions are represented in the GTA's food scene too, each with its own long history, even where our own catalogue's supplier map doesn't run a direct line to a single house for every community — El Captain, based in Cairo, carries Egypt's tradition in natural oils and personal care rather than pantry staples specifically.

The Syrian story, specifically

Syrian resettlement reshaped the availability of Levantine food across Canada in a way worth telling plainly. Between November 2015 and December 31, 2016, Canada resettled 44,620 Syrian refugees nationally (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, #WelcomeRefugees Key Figures). By 2021, cumulative Canada-wide Syrian refugee resettlement had grown to more than 73,000 (CBC News). Those are national totals — a verified GTA-only cumulative figure isn't available in the source material, so it wouldn't be honest to state one — but a substantial number of resettled families did put down roots in the GTA specifically, and that resettlement is part of why Syrian grocers, bakeries and restaurants are as established here as they are today.

That history sits behind the practical guide we've written for operators in that specific kitchen tradition: the Syrian restaurant pantry covers the Damascus and Aleppo staples a Syrian kitchen builds around.

What this means for a GTA buyer's shelf or menu

The practical takeaway is simple: a GTA operator serving these communities — or simply serving a market shaped by them — is stocking a food map, not a single cuisine. Za'atar and olive-based staples for the Palestinian tradition, halawa and maamoul for Damascus, pickled and preserved goods for Gaziantep, Aleppo soap for the boutique and gift shelf, coastal Syrian oils and coffee for the café counter — each line has a real community and a real tradition behind it, not a generic "Middle Eastern" label.

For the wider economic and demographic picture this food map sits inside — restaurant density, grocery growth, the broader Toronto CMA context — see the Levantine food economy of Toronto, and for one city within the CMA specifically, Middle Eastern food trade in Mississauga.