What We Make
Wraps, plates, grain bowls, mezze and more — every item made fresh, every ingredient traceable.
Browse the Full Menu →Our Philosophy
We started Bayt Al Shawarma with one stubborn belief: food that is grown honestly tastes unmistakably better. No shortcuts, no shortcuts, no compromise. Every chicken is free-range. Every spice is whole and ground in-house. Every vegetable arrives by morning delivery from farms we visit personally.
Read our storyWhat We Stand For
Every supplier signs our transparency pledge. We visit every farm. We know every grower's name. There is no grey area in our supply chain.
The vertical spit. The overnight marinade. The patience of low and slow. We have not invented anything new — we have just refused to cut corners.
Vegetable offcuts become stock. Flatbread scraps become croutons. Packaging is compostable. We consider waste a failure of imagination.
The Sauces
Toum — our fluffy, punchy garlic emulsion — is made every morning with nothing but garlic, lemon, oil and salt. Our house harissa roasts eight types of dried chillies. There is not a bottle of anything on our prep bench that did not start as a whole ingredient.
Browse the menuWhat People Say
"I've eaten shawarma across three continents. This is the only place where I can actually taste the animal it came from — in the best possible way."
"The toum alone is worth the visit. I asked them to sell it by the jar and they politely declined. I respect the commitment to eating it fresh."
"As someone with food intolerances, this is the first place I have eaten without interrogating the menu. They just know what is in everything."
"We brought 40 people here for a team lunch. The catering was flawless. The food disappeared faster than the meeting that preceded it."
Come In
Mon – Fri: 11am – 9pm
Sat – Sun: 10am – 10pm
Public Holidays: 11am – 8pm
34 Spice Lane, Fitzroy VIC 3065
Tram stop 22 — Brunswick St
hello@baytalshwarma.com
(03) 9XXX XXXX
Our Story
We are a family-run shawarma house rooted in the conviction that the best food starts long before the kitchen — it starts in the soil.
A Message From Our Founders
We grew up eating shawarma from a cart outside our grandmother's building in Beirut. There was nothing fancy about it — just honest meat, honest bread, honest sauce. When we moved to Australia in 2010, we couldn't find that honesty anywhere. So we built it ourselves.
What began as a Saturday market stall became a restaurant. What began as a recipe became a philosophy. Every decision we make — from the farmers we partner with to the way we wrap your shawarma — comes back to one question: does this feel honest?
Hana & Ramzi Al-Khalil Co-Founders, Bayt Al Shawarma · Est. 2014What We Stand For
Every ingredient on our menu has a name, a farm, and a postcode. We publish our full supplier list annually. We believe you have the right to know exactly what you're eating — not just a reassuring label.
01Our shawarma spit starts turning at 5am. Our flatbread proofs for 18 hours. Our sauces are made fresh each morning. We believe time is the one thing you cannot fake — and the one thing most restaurants try to skip.
02We pay above market rate to every farm we work with. We commit to 12-month supply agreements so farmers can plan. We visit personally at least twice a year. When they thrive, we thrive. It's that simple.
03Vegetable offcuts become stock. Flatbread scraps become croutons. Spent marinade spices are composted. All packaging is certified compostable. We track our waste weekly and publish our numbers. Waste is a failure of imagination.
04Our Journey
Hana and Ramzi begin selling shawarma from a 2-metre market stall at the Fitzroy Farmers Market. They sell out in 90 minutes every week for eight consecutive months. A restaurant starts to feel inevitable.
The restaurant opens at 34 Spice Lane, Fitzroy. Eleven seats. A secondhand spit. A homemade toum recipe that Hana's mother emails from Beirut. The queue forms before the doors open on day one.
After two years of supplier vetting and audits, every ingredient on the menu earns full organic certification. We become one of only three shawarma restaurants in Australia to achieve this. We frame the certificate in the kitchen where no one sees it, because that feels right.
We formalise relationships with 12 farms across Victoria. We launch our annual Farm Day — an open event where customers can visit the farms that feed them. Over 800 people attend the first edition.
We divert 98.7% of kitchen waste from landfill, achieving official zero-waste certification. We expand our seating to 42 and add a dedicated catering kitchen. The Saturday market stall still runs — now managed by Ramzi's sister Nour.
The spit still starts at 5am. Hana still makes the toum herself on Monday mornings. The flatbread still comes from the same third-generation bakery in Brunswick. Some things shouldn't change.
The People
Co-Founder & Head Chef
Trained in Beirut and Lyon, Hana oversees every recipe and all sauce production. She still arrives at 4:45am on Thursdays to prep the marinade herself. Her toum recipe is a closely guarded family secret — she has declined four publishing deals.
Co-Founder & Farm Relations
Ramzi manages every supplier relationship personally. He drives 12,000km a year visiting farms, tasting produce, and negotiating directly with growers. He believes the best restaurant decisions are made outdoors, not in spreadsheets.
Pastry & Bread
Ramzi's sister Nour joined in 2018 after a decade at bakeries in Paris and Melbourne. She manages all bread and pastry — including the 18-hour flatbread and the sesame-encrusted kaak that appears on weekends only.
As Seen In
"The most honest plate of food in Melbourne. Full stop."
— Good Food, ★★★★"A masterclass in restraint — nothing added that shouldn't be, nothing missing that should."
— Gourmet Traveller"Bayt Al Shawarma doesn't just serve food. It makes an argument about how food should work."
— Broadsheet MelbourneYour Selection
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34 Spice Lane, Fitzroy VIC 3065
Mon–Sun · 11 AM – 10 PM
Estimated ready time: 20–25 minutes
Every item is made fresh to order using certified organic ingredients, sourced within 80 km of Fitzroy.
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