Shawarma

Shawarma is marinated chicken stacked on a vertical spit and shaved into thin strips, wrapped in flatbread with garlic sauce, pickles and tomato. It's Lebanon's everyday spit-roasted sandwich, sold from stalls at any hour, and it belongs to the same wider family of rotating spit-roasted meat as döner kebab and gyros — a cooking method that spread widely across the region and beyond, with each country shaping it into its own distinct version.

What it really is

Thin slices of chicken, or sometimes lamb or beef, marinate for hours in a mix of yoghurt, vinegar and warm spices before stacking onto a vertical rotisserie that turns slowly in front of a heat source. As the outside layer cooks through and browns, a long knife shaves it away continuously, and the shaved meat wraps into flatbread with a garlicky toum sauce, pickles, tomato and sometimes fries, rolled tight and often pressed briefly on a hot griddle to seal the wrap.

The garlic sauce, toum, is what most defines a Lebanese shawarma against other versions of the same spit-roasted format. Made from little more than garlic, oil and lemon whipped into a thick, pale emulsion, toum's sharp punch is doing most of the flavour work in the wrap — a shawarma made with a different sauce reads as a different country's version of the same base technique.

How it's served

• Wrapped tight in flatbread, often pressed briefly on a griddle to seal it, eaten by hand.
• With toum, pickles, tomato and sometimes fries rolled inside.
• As a street food snack or quick meal, sold at any hour from dedicated stalls.

How to write it on the menu

• Flag the wheat from the flatbread.
• Say whether chicken, lamb or beef is used, since all three are common but different orders.
• Note if fries come rolled inside the wrap as standard, since not every guest expects that.

The ingredients, allergens and dietary notes listed here describe a typical recipe. They are not a binding declaration for any particular restaurant: recipes, portion sizes and the products used can differ.