Mountain Rhino Donuts, Calgary

Mountain Rhino Donuts is the latest rising star of Calgary’s increasingly gluten-free-friendly food scene, and it’s probably because their doughnuts have the rare distinction of tasting light, moist, and fresh—essentially, like they’re not gluten-free at all.

Started in the summer of 2017 by husband-and-wife team Steve and Ruth Fletcher-Beck, Mountain Rhino was originally a weekend market gig, a small operation offering hot chocolate and both traditional and gluten-free doughnut varieties. It wasn’t long before the gluten-free cruller-style doughnuts became a sensation in the celiac community, and Mountain Rhino made the switch to a completely gluten, corn, soy, nut, and largely dairy-free production.

As someone who can eat gluten, and probably eats more of it than I should, trust me on this one: Mountain Rhino’s doughnut are disarmingly delicious.

Every doughnut is crafted from scratch, using all-natural ingredients in a rotating roster of unique, surprising flavours like haskap berry and gin and tonic. “It’s important that everything we offer is homemade,” Steve says, “from the caramel in our black lava sea salted caramel doughnut to the marshmallows on our s’more doughnut.”

As someone who can eat gluten, and probably eats more of it than I should, trust me on this one: Mountain Rhino’s doughnut are disarmingly delicious. As a foodie friend with celiac disease so emphatically put it, “They’re so good that I almost cried. I never thought I’d taste a real cruller again.”

Mountain Rhino Donuts are available at the Market on Macleod and by order online, but keep an eye trained on their Instagram page to catch one of their periodic pop-ups around Calgary.

Photos by Paige Leigh Reist.
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