Shawarma Santé — Restaurant in Gatineau

We have been coming to Shawarma Santé since they were hidden away, in their original location, at Place Grande Rivière.

Since then, I have learned about sumac prepared onions, the difference between Donair and Beef meat. This place does not offer sumac onions or beef.

Shawarma Santé does not lose a star for not offering them because the service and what they do offer is really well prepared and everything is homemade except for the Baklava.

What they do do well is a great falafel or chicken sandwich. The fattouch salad with chicken (hummus, garlic sauce, fattouch pita chips and their special dressing) is quite good also.

The family meal, in my opinion, is enough for six (6) people. It is served with salad, roasted potatoes, rice, chicken, Donair meat garlic sauce, hummus salad dressing and pita bread.

We only get the chicken (which costs $3.00 more) because we discovered that we are not fans of Donair meat.

The potatoes are amazing. They are fresh cut, fried and prepared with a seasoned special house blend of spices.

The garlic sauce, hummus and dressing are pre-packaged separately, so everyone can serve as much or as little as they desire.

When I buy the family meal, I ask for an extra package of pita bread (there is an additional cost).

I also like that Shawarma Santé supports the Beyrouth pita bakery, in Gatineau.

The Baklava is now from a different supplier and an improvement over what they use to carry. I prefer my Baklava a little less sweet, so that you can taste the rose water. However, if you happen to like your Baklava sweet then you would enjoy this particular variety of Baklava.

This is a family owned business. They lived in Ottawa and use to commute to Aylmer, every morning, to open up their restaurant in Place Grande Rivière. Since moving to the new location across the street, the owners are now Aylmerites and this allowed them to extend their hours of operation.

The service is polite, courteous and fast even when the owners are not present. They sure do wrap those sandwiches mighty quickly, without compromising on quality.

Shawarma Santé does have quite a few tables inside and furnishes a few toys to keep the little ones occupied. There are also tables out front if you prefer to enjoy the sunshine.

This was my first introduction to Shawarma and I will always be thankful to Shawarma Santé for exposing me to their...

Today some child wearing giant headphones made my sandwich and it was horrible. Everyone else there makes them great and carefully, and he's had lots of time to learn. The next time I see him working I'll just walk back out the door like I did last time and you can lose my business again and again. At one point it was nothing but a mouthful of picked turnip, when I counted the turnip ends to see how many I'd just bit into in one bite it was 8. Who on earth wants 8 pickles in their mouth at once?? I don't know if he's stoned or if those headphones are on too tight but there's something wrong with him. Has this guy even ate a shawarma before? If the giant, childish headphones didn't tell you he wasn't serious about his job the sandwich sure will. Careless, terrible service. A real shame too because everyone else there seems...

We've been customers for years. Through many changes. Our favorite dish is their fattoush salad. We tolerated the switch from romaine to iceberg lettuce and the portion inconsistencies but this last time was the straw that broke the camels back for us. They've now changed the container to a way smaller one. We used to be able to feed our family with two large chicken salads, now I guess I'll be cooking something else for my kids to supplement them. Why change the container??? If it's because the new one is biodegradable, then why not fill it...