Best Food Near Baileys Crossroads

Baileys Crossroads takes its name from Hachaliah Bailey, a circus owner who used the area as winter quarters for his animals in the mid-1800s. Today, the intersection of Columbia Pike and Leesburg Pike is one of the most densely populated and ethnically diverse crossroads in the Washington DC metropolitan area. The Census-designated place straddles the boundary between Arlington County and Fairfax County, with a population that draws from Central America, East Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia in significant numbers.

That diversity shapes the dining landscape. Within a half-mile radius of the intersection, you can find Salvadoran pupuserias, Ethiopian injera houses, Vietnamese pho counters, Korean barbecue, Peruvian rotisserie chicken, Afghani kabob grills, and dozens of fast-casual chains. The competition for lunch and dinner traffic is intense, and the community expects its restaurants to deliver authentic flavors, fair prices, and genuine ingredient quality.

Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine has a dedicated following in the Baileys Crossroads area. The demand comes from both the sizable population of residents with roots in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, and the broader Levant, and from the equally large number of Americans and immigrants from other regions who have discovered shawarma, falafel, hummus, and za'atar flatbreads over the past decade. What has been harder to find is a single restaurant that handles every part of that menu correctly -- proper vertical-spit technique for the shawarma, made-to-order falafel, a working oven for manaeesh and pies, and consistent halal certification.

Taza Shawarma & Falafel fills that position. Located at 5820 Seminary Road (7 Bailey's Crossroads) in Falls Church, Virginia, the restaurant sits approximately one mile south of the Baileys Crossroads intersection. The drive takes about three minutes via Leesburg Pike to Seminary Road. Free parking is available in the Bailey's Crossroads, on Seminary Road lot.

The centerpiece of Taza's kitchen is the vertical rotisserie. You can watch the crew carve your shawarma off the vertical spit as you order. The marinated meat is stacked in tight layers on the vertical spit with ribbons of fat between each layer. As the spit rotates against open flame, the exterior develops a caramelized crust while the fat renders downward, basting everything beneath it. When you order, the meat is carved directly off the spit into your pita, shrak wrap, or bowl. Nothing sits in a warming tray.

Beyond shawarma, the menu spans falafel (made from chickpeas, herbs, and spices, fried to order), oven manaeesh (za'atar, cheese, spinach, and lahm bil ajin), specialty pies starting at $2.95 each, creamy hummus and smoky fire-roasted baba ghanouj, fresh-blended smoothies and juices, and desserts -- rice pudding with pistachio and harissa semolina cake, and rice pudding perfumed with cinnamon. The manaeesh and pies at Taza come out of the oven hot and ready to eat.

For Baileys Crossroads residents, Taza fills a gap in the local dining ecosystem. Authentic spit-roasted shawarma with a fully halal menu, an oven turning out manaeesh and pies all day, a genuine vegetarian selection anchored by made-to-order falafel and house-blended dips, and pricing that keeps a full meal. Ordering online, you can pick up to 6 of 11 toppings. Three minutes from the intersection that gives the community its name.