who created shawarma

Shawarma does not have a single, universally agreed-on “inventor,” but most food historians link its creation to 19th‑century Ottoman Turkey, with the technique often credited to a cook named Iskender (Mehmet Iskender Efendi) who popularized meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie.

Quick Scoop

• Shawarma grew out of Ottoman‑era street food that used stacked meat on a vertical spit, a method that appeared in the late 18th to 19th century.

• Many sources say a Turkish cook, Mehmet Iskender Efendi from Bursa, refined and popularized this vertical skewer method, which later inspired both döner kebab and what became known as shawarma.

• As the technique spread through the Levant (today’s Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, parts of Turkey), local cooks adapted the spices, sauces, and bread, turning it into the distinct Middle Eastern shawarma known today.

So who “created” it?

• Historically, the core innovation is the vertical rotisserie with layered meat, generally tied to Ottoman cooks in Turkey in the 1800s.

• The dish is frequently attributed to Iskender/Iskandar Efendi in Bursa, whose family is said to have been among the first to use a vertical skewer and serve thin shavings of meat in this style.

• However, shawarma as eaten now is the result of gradual evolution in the Levant, not a single moment or person, so it is more accurate to say it was developed from Turkish döner kebab and then transformed by Levantine cooks.

In short, if you are asking “who created shawarma,” the best answer is: Ottoman Turkish cooks (especially Iskender Efendi) pioneered the method, and Levantine chefs turned it into the shawarma loved around the world today.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.