What’s on the menu at Yaffa Shawarma and Falafel, a casual Middle Eastern spot from the team behind the Haifa Room

Name: Yaffa Shawarma and Falafel Contact: 2313 Yonge St., yaffashawarma.com, @yaffa.shawarma.falafel
Neighbourhood: Yonge and Eglinton Owners: Arie Dimant (Jean Darlene), Nader Arafat Kadri, Fadi Hakim (The Haifa Room, Jean Darlene), Yossi Mizrachi (Paris Paris, Superpoint, The Haifa Room), Mark Kupfert (Kupfert and Kim, Danny’s Pizza Tavern, The Haifa Room) Accessibility: Fully accessible

Food is often said to bring people together, and the owners of Yaffa, the new fast-casual spot at Yonge and Eglinton for super simple, properly executed Middle Eastern laffas, pitas and bowls, take that sense of unity seriously. “We’re a group of friends with different origins—some of us Israeli, some of us Palestinian, some of us Canadian—it doesn’t matter, we all love and appreciate a style of cuisine that is unparalleled. To make our restaurants and our relationships work, we leave politics aside,” says co-owner Arie Dimant, who, along with business partner Nader Arafat Kadri, joined Yossi Mizrachi, Mark Kupfert, Fadi Hakim and Daniel Suss of Ossington’s Haifa Room to start this new venture.

Related: What’s on the menu at the Haifa Room

To that end, Yaffa—aptly named after the Israeli port city of Jaffa, known for its abundant orchards, incredible markets, and large population of both Arab and Jewish residents—churns out satisfyingly large meals in either puffy Israeli-style pita, thin Lebanese-style flatbread or North American–style bowls—each bursting with thrillingly disparate flavours and textures and dripping with sauce.

The food

Bright pickles, warm spices, creamy sauces, slow-roasted nightshades, crunchy fried legumes and juicy poultry provide the makeup for a classic Middle Eastern pita-joint menu. Standouts include the slow-roasted, just-greasy-enough chicken shawarma and the thinly sliced fried eggplant and boiled egg sabich (an Iraqi breakfast sandwich). They’re available, like all menu items, either in a bowl, in laffa or in pita with your choice of fixings from the rainbow of toppings that includes pickled beets, unctuous slow-cooked Moroccan eggplant and—by special request—french fries.

The drinks

With no liquor licence, the focus is placed solely on Jaffa’s most famous crop: the orange. Besides the typical roster of flavoured sparkling waters and pop, Yaffa offers fresh-squeezed orange juice, using a variety of oranges to get the balance as close to the Israeli version as possible.

The space

While the modern bright-orange branding sets Yaffa apart from other Middle Eastern takeaway spots, tasteful nods to the cuisine’s origins come through in the room’s design. Whitewashed exposed-brick walls are a subtle nod to the walls of Jaffa. Mosaic-tiled floors conjure up the intricate decorative techniques of the Middle East, and accessories like hookah pipes, Moroccan tea sets and framed photos of Jaffa make the space seem rooted in history and culture.