Gyros

Gyros is shaved rotisserie pork stacked into warm pita with tomato, onion and a spoon of tzatziki, often with a handful of fries tucked inside the wrap itself. The meat cooks stacked on a vertical spit that turns slowly in front of a heat source, the outside shaving away in thin strips as it browns — the same cooking principle behind döner kebab and shawarma, all three part of one wider family of rotating spit-roasted meat that spread across the eastern Mediterranean and beyond, each version taking on its own regional shape.

What it really is

Thin slices of marinated pork — chicken is a common alternative — stack onto a vertical rotisserie and turn slowly, cooking through while the outer layer browns and crisps; a long knife shaves off that cooked outer layer continuously as it forms. The shaved meat piles into a warm pita alongside tomato, raw onion and a generous spoon of tzatziki, and in Greece it's standard practice to tuck a handful of fries inside the wrap itself rather than serving them as a side.

The fries going inside the wrap, not beside it, is a specifically Greek habit that surprises visitors expecting a döner-style sandwich. It changes the texture of every bite — a mix of shaved meat, crisp fries and cool tzatziki together — and leaving them out reads as a shawarma-style wrap rather than an actual Greek gyros.

How it's served

• Wrapped in warm pita, held in paper, eaten by hand — a street-food staple.
• With tomato, onion, tzatziki and, traditionally, fries folded inside the wrap.
• Also served open, on a plate, with the same fillings arranged around the meat and a side of fries.

How to write it on the menu

• Flag the wheat from the pita and the dairy from the tzatziki.
• Say whether pork or chicken is used, since both are common but not interchangeable to every guest.
• Note if fries come inside the wrap as standard, since a guest expecting a döner-style sandwich may not know to ask.