Over the course of more than 45 years of continuous operation, Harmony Donut Shop has weathered some storms.
Recessions. Realty booms and busts. Atkins, South Beach, and Kate Moss. Nouveau cuisine. The Cronut.
Perhaps the key to the shop’s enduring success is that it has never fallen for the bait of fleeting trends.
Harmony, the quirky, unassuming hole-in-the-wall at the top of Lonsdale Avenue that is crammed to the gills with collectible action figures, graphic lunchboxes, trading cards and novelty hobby treasures, has effectively produced the same thing for its entire 4½ decades of doing business: delicious, straightforward doughnuts that are still identifiable as doughnuts.
Doughnuts, like craft ice cream and waffles, are hot on the sweet scene right now. But unlike their distant cousins that are stuffed with bourbon and smoked cinnamon custard and topped with orange candied bacon bits, Harmony doughnuts trade on a solid currency of classic flavours. Behind the till, a humble little doughnut machine whirs away six days a week from early in the morning, transporting rings of raw, homemade dough along a short journey through hot oil and up a wire conveyor belt, where a set of waiting hands takes the golden confections and dips them in myriad toppings.
The brightly adorned treats are set atop trays displayed in Harmony’s window, where they will not remain for very long given the steady stream of fiercely loyal customers eager to take them home, a dozen at a time.
I have lived on the North Shore since 2004 and have eaten many a Harmony doughnut. Stepping into the shop early one recent Saturday morning, however, I realized that every single Harmony doughnut I’ve reduced to crumbs has been on someone else’s dime; I had never actually stepped foot in the shop before this visit.
I know this because I would remember. The shop is eccentric in its devotion to collectibles of a bygone era and is memorable in its gleeful clutter. There is a shameless childish gusto at work in there, a wide-eyed enthusiasm for toys and keepsakes that remain on prominent display out of genuine affection and not to serve some sort of cynical, too-cool-for-school irony, a pervasive mode of being in far too many venues today. The prevalent geekiness of it all is heartening.
I think that a hazard of the current fashionable doughnut craze is that sometimes the fun of the treat is lost in practice. Doughnuts don’t come from a high falutin tradition; they’re food from the fair, birthday goodies, guilty pleasures to be washed down with coffee.
There may be a place for doughnuts with exotic and expensive ingredients, but Harmony is not that place and I am grateful for it. Harmony is an enduring bastion to the type of doughnut that impressed me as a kid. The coloured glazes that top each doughnut are intuitive: white is vanilla, brown is chocolate, pink is strawberry and yellow is lemon. The crunchy little textures that finish the doughnuts are equally accessible and include peanuts, coconut, slivered almonds and, in keeping with the retro theme of the shop’s decor, rainbow sprinkles.
I popped in to pick up a dozen brightly coloured doughnuts and quickly discovered, having failed to read the sign on the door, that Harmony accepts cash only. Other patrons queued alongside me made no such mistake, clearly better versed in this tradition than I. After a quick jaunt for cash, I returned to claim my box of a dozen, a steal at just $10, plus a couple more for the road.
I rushed home to make a cup of strong coffee and sprung the happy box open in front of my kids, who sat agog when faced with one of the greatest breakfast treats since that one time we finished a birthday cake together while watching Saturday morning cartoons. (For the record, in case you are getting the wrong idea and feel inclined to dispatch someone to investigate the nutrition of my kids, oatmeal and fresh fruit are the breakfast staples in my house).
Of the frosted doughnuts, the lemon-coconut was my favourite; the tart glaze added a good contrast to the sweet and doughy pastry. The kids were fans of the orange glazed variety, but I found they reminded me too much of what the residual milk tastes like after a bowl of Froot Loops.
For my tastes, the plain doughnut was the best of the lot, showing the quality of the confection. Harmony doughnuts are nicely crisped on the outside, with a dense and succulent interior. The shop’s sugar-coated iterations are nice too, but honestly, do yourself a favour and pick up at least one plain doughnut in your otherwise colourful assortment of goodies; it’ll remind you of where this simple confection, now the vessel for all manner of esoteric toppings, came from.
Harmony Donut Shop is located at 2945 Lonsdale Ave. 604-987-0525. No website. Cash only.
Chris Dagenais served as a manager for several restaurants downtown and on the North Shore. A self-described wine fanatic, he earned his sommelier diploma in 2001. He can be reached via email at [email protected]. North Shore News dining reviews are conducted anonymously and all meals are paid for by the newspaper.
