In the half-century or so since Turkish immigrants brought the doner kebab to Aotearoa, the wrap filled with meat shaved off a vertical spit, salads and sauces has become a fast food staple, particularly late at night.
But there’s a lot more to spinning meats than 3am feeds.
“I don’t want to be rude about them,” says Ozan Ozturk, “but those cheaper, more like fast food, late night kebab places, some of them are using pre-made (meat), and that’s not the traditional way of doing it”.
Are we crab-stick loyalists or do potato fritters reign supreme? Is a spring roll non-negotiable – or is the deep-fried, sugar-dusted joy of a pineapple fritter the absolute essential?
Instead of the processed meat favoured by some for cost and convenience, at his Lower Hutt restaurant, Arzum Kebab, Ozturk prepares the meat for his vertical rotisserie as is done in Turkey, from where he emigrated 18 years ago.
In the distant past, he explains, the meat on the spit would have been a single joint, like a lamb leg. That has evolved over time into a mixture of filleted and minced meat, layered on top of one another to create the distinctive cone shape.
Ozan Ozturk who runs Lower Hutt restaurant, Arzum Kebab.
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Arzum’s filleted meat is marinated in black pepper, salt and oregano for at least a day before cooking, while spices are mixed into the minced meat.
Another change from the doner kebab’s earliest days: centuries ago, the meat was cooked on a horizontal spit. But, explains Ozturk, once the technology developed, vertical cooking was widely embraced.
“The fat dripping through the fire was causing some damage,” he says, “and… they had to control the fire all the time due to the drippings.”
With vertical cooking, the rising heat allows for slower, more even cooking. “It’s giving a bit of tenderness,” says Ozturk. “The meat is tastier.”
Spinning meat originated with modern Turks and spread throughout the Middle East and Mediterranean with the Ottoman Empire.
Ozan Ozturk runs Lower Hutt restaurant, Arzum Kebab. This is his final product – a lamb doner. It stays in plastic wrap to keep the round shape, before removing, putting it on the spit and cooking.
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“Doner” means to turn or spin in Turkish, as does the Arabic “shawarma” and Greek “gyro”. There’s even the Mexican “trompo” – literally “spinning top” – which came to Mexico with Lebanese immigrants. They all come from the same tradition, even if each culture has put its own – ahem – spin on the style.
Even in New Zealand, says Ozturk, the local palate has brought some unique additions to the doner kebab.
“Normally you won’t get any beetroot in Turkey for your kebab,” for example. “You won’t even find it in most places. But over here, they ask for this.”
When Elie Assaf opened his Auckland deli Lebanese Grocer, he had a goal of serving unapologetically authentic Lebanese food.
Elie Assaf at his Auckland deli, Lebanese Grocer.
Emily Raftery
Soon after emigrating to Wellington in 1995, when Assaf was 10, his parents opened the now-iconic Phoenician Falafel on Kent Terrace. Assaf learned to cook from his mother, but became aware that the food they ate at home, and on return trips to Lebanon, was different to what she served at the restaurant.
“Because it was 1995,” he says, “they adapted to New Zealand with the way that they presented the food and the culture.”
Now, Assaf reckons travel and access to the internet means Kiwis have “more understanding of what authentic means”.
So he makes things like hummus, baba ganoush, toum and labneh based on traditional recipes.
But they’re all there to support the star of the show: shawarma.
First, Assaf takes chicken breast and thigh, and brines it with salt and sugar for up to 48 hours, then marinates it for another 24 in his family’s shawarma spice recipe.
The meat is then filleted and butterflied before cutting into very thin slices which are layered on top of each other on the spit.
“We leave the skin on for both of those,” Assaf explains, “which means that when it’s cooking, the fat from the skin keeps it really, really juicy.”
The chicken will need to rotate in front of the flame for about an hour and a half before the first sandwich can come off it, “but it’s cooking the whole day,” says Assaf.
Crispy chicken shawarma at the Lebanese Grocer, Auckland.
Instagram / @lebanesegrocer
“The beauty about a vertical shawarma spit is it’s got a really slow cooking process which allows you to constantly be serving something fresh every time a customer walks in.”
So Turkish spinning meat started out horizontal, became vertical, and spread throughout the world. But where does that horizontal spit come from?
“The first reference is found basically in Homer’s Iliad,” says Olympia Katsenios.
Katsenios and her husband, Kostas, own and operate Auckland catering company The Greek Guys grill, which specialises in kontosouvli – meat cooked on a horizontal rotisserie.
Greek Guys Grill family Kostas, Olympia, Achilleas, Leidy, Mihail.
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The word literally means “short spit”, and refers to large pieces of marinated meat cooked on a long skewer over charcoal.
“It rotates slowly, which means it cooks evenly and basically cooks in its own juices,” Katsenios explains.
“So it doesn’t lose that juice, it goes back inside. So the result is basically crispy on the outside and very juicy on the inside.”
Unlike the more casual gyro, or its Middle Eastern equivalents, kontosouvli is a festive food. It’s found at taverns and steakhouses, says Katsenios, and in private homes for celebrations like weddings or birthdays.
“There is a little bit of theatre to it.”
Greek Guys use pork shoulder, lamb leg and chicken thighs for their kontosouvli; beef isn’t suitable, as it’s too lean.
Meat on the spits while cooking on the BBQ over charcoal.
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The meat is chopped into chunks, rubbed in a simple mix of salt and oregano, “and then the charcoal does the rest of the work.”
Cooked meat is cut into smaller pieces and served with Greek-style lemon baked potatoes and salads as a main course.
“It’s simple, flavourful,” Katsenios says. “It’s something that fits really well to the Kiwi lifestyle.”
The way we serve it with the sides at our caterings.
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Assaf – whose favourite way of eating shawarma is with some garlicky toum, pickled turnips, dipped in the chicken fat that drips off the spit and wrapped in two thin slices of pita – thinks Kiwis are more open to a less generic “kebab”.
“In Wellington, you’re seeing Syrians opening up a Syrian shawarma spot, doing it the way that they do it in Syria, and Turkish doner kebabs are being reclaimed by people that have been trained at Turkish schools,” he says.
“It’s 2026 now. I think the times are changing.”
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand