There are 28 places you can order what Sam Srougi calls "the original Halifax-style donair".

All but one of those locations are scattered across the East Coast. The one outlier, if you haven’t already guessed, is in Barrie.

In February, Ricardo’s opened, bringing authentic Nova Scotian donair to the city, thanks to a familial connection on the east coast.

If you’re not familiar with the iconic east coast snack, it’s descended from the Turkish doner kebab, which was adapted by the Greek into the gyro, where it crossed the Atlantic with Peter and John Kamoulakos to become an official Nova Scotian treat, the donair.

Adapting it to Canadian palates, the brothers swapped out the Greek yogurt-based tzatziki and tried out a sweet sauce. It became the perfect food for a late-night walk home from the pub. It might be important to note here, Ricardo’s is open on Friday and Saturday until 2 a.m., and delivers anywhere in Barrie.

“So many people think they know what it is,” Sam Srougi, owner of Ricardo’s said, “but the truth is this is the secret sauce that makes this dish what it is.”

The meat may as well be another part of the "secret sauce" that makes donairs so delicious.

While everything else is made in-house, Srougi said, the meat is shipped in, frozen on spits, from the east coast. Much like kebabs and gyros, the spiced meat is roasted on a spit and shaved to order.

Wrap that in a thin pita, with some chopped onions and lettuce, and a generous drizzle of the sweet sauce, and that’s arguably more Canadian than poutine (which is also on the menu at Ricardo’s).

While its predecessors are a mix of a spices, beef, and lamb, Srougi said his donair meat is just spices and beef.