Despite the name, the Persian has nothing to do with Iran — it’s a proudly Canadian invention, created in the 1950s at the Persian Restaurant and Bakery in Thornhill, just north of Toronto. The story goes that a customer asked for something new, and the bakers rolled a sweet yeast dough with a cinnamon-sugar-butter filling, baked it into a soft, flaky bun, and finished it with a rosewater icing and a single walnut half. It became a local legend, and today bakeries across York Region sell thousands of them a week — a true Ontario original.
What makes it great is the rosewater — that gentle floral note turns an already delicious cinnamon bun into something exotic and utterly addictive. The dough is tender and flaky, the centre is a swirl of buttery cinnamon sugar, and the glossy icing sets into a sweet, perfumed shell. It’s the pastry that Torontonians argue about the way others argue about bagels, and once you’ve tried a real one, no ordinary cinnamon bun will ever quite do.
