Best Shawarma in Arlington, VA

Arlington, Virginia, is one of the most dynamic dining markets in the Washington, DC metro area. Clarendon and Ballston are lined with restaurants and bars. Rosslyn serves the office crowd with quick-service lunch spots. Crystal City is growing rapidly with Amazon HQ2 and the National Landing development. Pentagon City has the Fashion Centre and thousands of government workers. Columbia Pike is one of Northern Virginia's most diverse corridors. Shirlington Village has become a dining destination in its own right.

What Arlington lacks, despite all of this, is a dedicated shawarma restaurant that uses a traditional vertical spit. The kind where meat rotates next to open flame, where the exterior develops a deep caramelization, where the fat renders downward to baste every layer beneath it. Fast-casual chains like Cava and Mezeh offer Mediterranean-inspired bowls and wraps, but they do not run a vertical spit. Their proteins are cooked on flat grills or in ovens. That is a different product entirely.

Taza Shawarma & Falafel operates at 5820 Seminary Rd in Falls Church, VA -- right on the Falls Church/Arlington border. The location sits along Seminary Road, which connects directly to Glebe Road (serving Clarendon, Ballston, and Courthouse) and to I-395 (serving Pentagon City, Crystal City, Shirlington, and the southern Arlington corridor). From any neighborhood in Arlington, Taza is between six and twelve minutes away.

In the store, you choose from 14 free toppings and the crew builds it at the counter. Beef is layered with fat ribbons between each slice. Both go onto the vertical spit and rotate slowly next to open flame. When you order, the meat is carved directly off the rotating spit with a sharp blade. Not pulled from a holding tray. Not reheated from a steam table. That immediacy is what distinguishes Taza from the average shawarma you might find elsewhere in the region.

The Levantine tradition of shawarma has roots in Ottoman-era cooking, where stacked meat was roasted vertically over a charcoal fire. The technique spread across Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and the broader Middle East, with each region developing its own marinade and spice profile. The Lebanese version -- which is what Taza serves -- emphasizes yogurt marinades, citrus acidity, and a warm spice blend dominated by cardamom and allspice. The bread is either a pocket-style pita or shrak, a paper-thin flatbread baked on a domed griddle. Both styles are made fresh at Taza daily.

The menu offers six shawarma formats: chicken or beef, each available in a fresh-baked pita pocket, a traditional shrak flatbread wrap, or a bowl over basmati rice or lettuce. Pita sandwiches start at $9.95. Shrak wraps start at $11.45. Bowls start at $12.45. All prices include the full build: garlic sauce, pickled turnips, fresh vegetables, and tahini.

Beyond shawarma, Taza serves a full Mediterranean menu: falafel fried to order, creamy hummus, smoky baba ghanouj, oven-baked manaeesh with za'atar or cheese or spinach, lahm bil ajin, savory meat and vegetable pies, and rice pudding with pistachio. All meats are halal with no exceptions. For Arlington's diverse communities -- including the significant Middle Eastern and South Asian populations along Columbia Pike -- Taza is an easy choice for halal food.

Ordering online, you can pick up to 6 of 11 toppings. Pickup orders can be placed online through our website. For catering -- office lunches in Rosslyn, events in Clarendon, parties in Ballston -- call (703) 340-1014 or order through our site. We deliver shawarma platters, falafel trays, and complete Mediterranean spreads across the entire Arlington area.

Taza is open from 11:00 AM to 12:00 AM (midnight), seven days a week. The spit is rotating from open to close. For Arlington residents looking for authentic, spit-roasted, hand-carved shawarma -- the kind where you can see the meat come off the flame in front of you, the kind that fast-casual chains cannot replicate -- Taza is right here on Seminary Road, minutes from anywhere in Arlington.