Tacos al pastor are shawarma's Mexican grandchild, brought by Lebanese immigrants
The spinning meat cone behind every shawarma counter traces back to a 19th-century butcher in Bursa. From the Ottoman Empire it spread in every direction: Greek gyros, Levantine shawarma, and, thanks to Lebanese migrants in Mexico, tacos al pastor. The Arabic name itself simply means turning.
Shawarma comes from the Levant in the Ottoman era. Thin slices of seasoned meat, traditionally lamb or mutton though now often chicken, turkey or beef, are stacked into an upside-down cone about 60 cm high on a spit that rotates slowly in front of a heater. Bits of fat tucked into the stack keep it juicy, and the cook shaves off the browned outer layer with a long flat blade. Some cooks still prefer a horizontal spit over charcoal.
The word renders the Turkish cevirme, meaning turning, and an 1895 Egyptian Arabic-English dictionary by Socrates Spiro already listed it as roast meat or rich stew. Encyclopedia Britannica credits the vertical-spit idea to a butcher named Iskender, whose Bursa shop sold meat layered on an upright skewer and carved as it cooked. That doner technique is the common ancestor of gyros and shawarma alike.
Every region has its version. Chicken shawarma in the Middle East typically comes with toum, a whipped sauce of garlic, oil and lemon, while beef is paired with tarator, made with tahini. Syrian-style wraps favour garlic sauce and chicken, Egyptian ones tahini, and both compete side by side in Egypt. Armenian and Georgian cooks marinate meat overnight, Palestinian servings bring sumac and onions, and in Lagos the Nigerian take swaps tomatoes for shredded cabbage, adds sausage and uses a sauce of salad cream, mayonnaise and ketchup.
Lebanese emigrants carried the dish far. In Mexico it became tacos al pastor early in the 20th century, and Nigeria's version is thought to have arrived the same way. Ottawa, with a large Lebanese community, was declared Canada's shawarma capital by its city council in 2024, and on June 7th 2026 the city set a Guinness record with a line of 2,451 sandwiches stretching 375 metres.
Source: Shawarma
