An Arabic breakfast is not a plate, it is a table. Bowls of labneh slicked with olive oil, za’atar and oil for the bread, olives, cucumber and tomato, white cheese, eggs, and something hot and baked — manakish from the oven, or fatteh in the Levantine houses, or foul in the Egyptian and Sudanese ones — with sweet tea to finish and, on a weekend, kunafa to follow. It is the most sociable meal in the region’s cooking, and in Calgary it lives mostly in the northeast, in bakeries that open early and kitchens that treat breakfast as the main event. This is where to find it, all of it halal, and every place linked here is on the map.
Sit down for the full spread
Well Bake Mediterranean Cuisine on 32 Street NE is the place to start, because it is the one where the Arabic breakfast is the reason people come in the morning rather than a line on the menu. It is a Lebanese bakery and kitchen, halal across the whole menu, and the order is the one in the photo above: labneh that reviewers call light and fresh, bread straight from the oven, and manakish and fatayer — the thing most bakeries in the city do not make at all. They will adjust a dish without fuss, and the room is plain in a way nobody minds once the tray arrives.
A board of manakish at Well Bake: meat, spinach, cheese and za’atar, end to end
Pita Basket Sunridge, off Sunridge Way NE, is a shawarma counter by name, but the reviews are unanimous about what this branch does best: the Lebanese breakfast, and fatteh above all — chickpeas and toasted bread under garlicky yogurt and pine nuts, the one dish on this list that is really a breakfast in itself. Add a meat pie and a za’atar-and-cheese, and the bread is some of the best in the city by its regulars’ account.
Royal Bake Mediterranean Cuisine, also on 32 Street NE, is a Syrian bakery with a kitchen behind the pastry counter, and its listing puts the point plainly: it opens at 9am, seven days, so there is manakish in the morning. The cheese manakish on soft dough is the one to order, the fatteh gets named too, and it has coffee and tables, so it works as somewhere to sit rather than only a bakery.
The manakish run
If breakfast is a warm pie in a paper sleeve, Calgary has four bakeries worth crossing town for — our guide to ordering manakish and fatteh by name has the longer version.
Mr. Meat Pie, in the 21 Street NE plaza, bakes to order and opens at 8am according to its listing — the earliest start on this list. The meat-and-cheese pie is the namesake; regulars push the VIP za’atar, with extra topping on a crisp base, and the spinach. Village Pita Bakery on 28 Street SE has been baking since the late 1970s and traces its roots, in its own words, to the village of Khirbet Rouha in Lebanon; its za’atar pies are the reason to go, and it is a grocery too, so you leave with olives.
A pie in its paper at Village Pita, with a bowl of green olives — breakfast in the Lebanese sense
Azar Bakery in Highfield, on 11 Street SE, is small and much loved: za’atar, cheese, meat and spinach pies fresh from the oven, from 9am on the days it opens (it is closed on Mondays). And Tasty Halal Store on 64 Street NE is an Iraqi and Mediterranean grocery with a bakery attached — the manakeesh convert first-timers, and the bread is baked in house.
Build the table at home
Half of an Arabic breakfast is dairy, and the best source in the city makes its own. Chinook Cheese on 32 Avenue NE is a cheesemaker with an Arabic grocery on the front: its own labneh, nabulsi, braided cheese, yogurt and clotted cream, the base of a Saturday spread, plus the pantry staples around them. Pick up bread and pies at Village Pita or Tasty Halal Store on the way home, and the table builds itself. Chinook opens at 10am, Monday to Saturday.
Nabulsi from Chinook Cheese, made in Calgary — the salty white cheese of a Levantine breakfast
Finish with something sweet
A weekend breakfast in much of the Levant ends with kunafa, and Calgary has a very good one. Phillistines Bakery & Sweets, a Palestinian bakery in the same 21 Street NE plaza as Mr. Meat Pie, brings its Akawi-cheese kunafa out hot every thirty minutes from 9am — which makes a manakeesh next door and kunafa here the best one-stop breakfast in the city. For a box to take to someone else’s table, Tasse Bakery & Sweets on 5 Avenue NE does knafeh, baklava and maamoul.
Pistachio baklava from the case at Phillistines
The short version
For the full sit-down spread, go to Well Bake, or Pita Basket Sunridge for the fatteh. For a pie on the run, Mr. Meat Pie opens earliest and Village Pita has been doing it longest. Stock the table from Chinook Cheese, and end at Phillistines for kunafa. Nobody here lists foul by name, so ask — kitchens that do an Arabic breakfast often have it. For Turkish spreads and halwa puri, the wider halal breakfast guide carries on from here; on the map, the Breakfast, Arabic and Bakery filters will show you everything else nearby.
Common questions
Where can I get an Arabic breakfast in Calgary?
Well Bake Mediterranean Cuisine on 32 Street NE is the best-known sit-down Arabic breakfast — labneh, za’atar, manakish and fatayer. Pita Basket Sunridge is known for its Lebanese breakfast and fatteh, and Royal Bake opens at 9am for manakish. All are halal and on the map.
Where can I get manakish for breakfast in Calgary?
Mr. Meat Pie on 21 Street NE opens earliest, at 8am per its listing. Village Pita Bakery has been baking za’atar and meat pies since the late 1970s, and Azar Bakery in Highfield is a small favourite (closed Mondays).
Where can I get fatteh in Calgary?
Pita Basket Sunridge is the one reviewers name first for fatteh as a breakfast, and Royal Bake Mediterranean Cuisine serves it too.
Where can I buy labneh and nabulsi cheese in Calgary?
Chinook Cheese on 32 Avenue NE makes its own labneh, nabulsi, braided cheese, yogurt and clotted cream, and sells them with Arabic groceries. It is open Monday to Saturday.