Barakat

Food is good. But kinda overpriced. Workers are nice, please is always busy but that’s a good thing right?
Overall please lower the cost but the food is good.

In the heart of downtown, this small but busy middle eastern restaurant has fast and polite service.
The food was delicious!
It’s a great place to go with a friend, catch up and eat great food.

Have always heard rave reviews of the food and decided to finally try it out. I went in to order a take-​out order of Mala salad. While the food lived up to the hype I can’t say the same about the service. The three men behind the counter had zero personality and seemed annoyed that I was interrupting them from their conversation. The one at the cash just stared at me until I finally had to ask if I could pay now. While I know poor service isn’t as important if the food is great it’s still nice to be treated as a welcome customer who is supporting their business. My only other issue was that the server poured an obscene amount of sauce onto the salad without confirming how much I wanted. It’s not like me to complain about extra portions but if you can’t close the container without it pouring out into the bag that’s just a lack of care or common sense. Once I wiped my salad free of excess it was delicious though. I will give it another chance but with plenty of restaurants in London that do the same food I have plenty of options.

Service was great, food was great, and atmosphere was great! Had the Veggie Combo and it was delicious and filling. Service was helpful, informative, and fast. And of the course the atmosphere was not too loud and had a tv show playing which is great for when you want to ignore friends or family.
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Great middle eastern food here. The Mala special is a awesome and so are their shawarmas.

I came the other day to visit a friend in London Ontario. So I wanna to check this middle easter place there as I headed it is one of the best around London. I liked the place very nice. The fill up the pita rap all the way so it is worth the money. The place is not expensive typical shawarma price. I got the chicken shawarma rap. I had better chicken rap but It is still good. I was somehow disappointed in the taboli as I had way better and I think they can improve on the quality of the taboli.
Over all the place is nice and I will recoment it to people whom like middle eastern food.

First time here and I order the chicken and rice and my gf got the sharwama and it was so delicious. Its I’m the corner so you can’t miss it. They have a variety of foods and the prices are deceent. The portions are big here.

I was 100% wrong on my previous review. I had clearly been in a bad mood, or sick, or it had been an off day because I have come to really love this place. I started coming here more frequently after I realized that the Tahini truck that was in Victoria Park was actually Barakat, so I wouldn’t have to worry about them not being there.
I almost always get the chicken and rice, which all the toppings. The rice has this beautiful curry flavor in it and the chicken is just phenomenal. The swirl in the garlic sauce, hummus and red cabbage into a beautiful mess and eat the whole thing in 3 separate meals. The serving sizes are so large that it has become my «I’m poor» meals as well as «I’m lazy» meals

Went here 3 weeks ago. Had the poutine. The fries were crisp, toppings fresh. Excellent! Found out later they had baklava which made me sad.
That will happen next time I return!

Before I became semi-​Canadian, my exposure to Middle Eastern food was limited to a Pita. Sad, I know. But then I was taken by the hand on a magical mystical journey through fields of hummus, toum, a Mala and my first shawarma ever. I was taken to Barakat.
In all seriousness this has been one of my number one places to eat in London. The Mala (salad) is probably my favorite part of the menu, but I’ve feasted on Shawarmas, Shish Taouk and baba ganouche and even the «middle eastern fries» which was really just another excuse to shovel hummus and the insanely addictive garlic sauce «toum» into my face with another means other than a pita or a spoon.
Huge portions. Great service. Either location. This is one of my happy places.

I had Combo Plate 1(shish tawook and shish kabob, with hommos, baba gannouge, garlic, cabbage, vegetables and pita). It was delicious, and though a little pricey, it lasted me 2 days, and was healthy and fresh. I love that I live a 5 minute walk from here!!!

Came here for a sandwich since it was two doors down from the poutine place. I went with the swish tawook, which was made fresh and was pretty good. Also had a bite of the chicken shawarma and that too was pretty good. They also at this restaurant add cucumber to the sandwich along with the standard toppings, which add another level to this sandwich. More of a 3.5 star review than anything.

This restaurant was really close to getting 5 stars from me, if I didn’t have the taste of Lazeez’s shawarma from Mississauga still in my mind.
I’ve been here several times now, and continue getting the chicken shawarma wrap with the lentil soup. I can’t resist the lentil soup, despite knowing that the shawarma is ridiculously filling. But wow, the food is really good!
Apparently, according to my friends, the falafel and shawarma plate with rice is phenomenal too.
The service is pretty quick and friendly, and the prices are completely reasonable.
They offer delivery, and I often get tempted to order from home, but then get reluctant from the thought of a soggy shawarma.
This is my to go to place when I’m craving something really hearty. Love it!

As I get older, I like to pride myself on diversity and having a variety of experiences under my belt. A «where in the world is Carmen San diego» of the middle class dad realm.
This ambition of «try everything once» has led me down some dark and stormy paths from time to time, but has also led me to the promised land on more than one occasion.
Barakat Richmond was one of those accidental ate too many burritos and farted while swinging and did a Tasmanian devil 360 and hit it out of the stadium in a friendly game of slow pitch home runs.
I spent 25 years of my life having no idea what a shwarma was. Chicken was fried, baked, or on a wing and that was it. One day I stumbled into Barakat because it was 2 am and I was waiting for a cab and had to pee.
Once I walked in, the clouds opened and the stars aligned and Mariah Carey hit the extra extra high notes.
DID YOU KNOW CHICKEN CAN COME ON A GIANT SPIT AND SPIN IN CIRCLES AND YOU CAN SHAVE OFF AS MUCH AS YOU WANT? because I didn’t.
A shwarma spit and an in house monkey Butler in an orange ruffled tux trained to use it are all I need for my dream home. It can be a cardboard box in the middle of the South Pacific for all I care. I’ll make friends with a volleyball too. Just give me some of that meaty spicy goodness. With some crunchy baked pita chips on top.
I spent:
$ 14.70
I got:
Mala salad, a huge tub of hummus, and a bag of pitas
The good:
The entire dish. I have ordered this at least once a week since I first tried it. Healthy. Fresh. Beautiful. It’s like the lunch version of that sunset beach channel on your cable box.
The bad:
Barakat doesn’t have an all you can eat buffet. Sup with that, player haters?
The ugly:
It’s getting cold out. I can’t roll out to lunch with the sunroof open, rapping along to Montell Jordan like it’s 1997 and my name is Corey Matthews. This isn’t how we will be doing it another week from now.
Keep up the great work Barakat!

I thought this place was very good and authentic. Good food, service, and value for the money.

The best Shawrma place in the entire world for sure. Their Shawrma is the best tasting Shawrma I tried in the entire North America. People even drive out here all the way from Detroit and Toronto just to eat the food.
The staff is very friendly and the atmosphere is very economical. Try their chicken salad Mala and chicken with rice bowl and Shawrma sandwiches. I promise you won’t be disappointed. Their portions are huge and quantity van be shared easily between two people.
Only bad point is your order had to be at least of $ 10 to use credit debit card. Other than that it is perfect. O am sure they are loose business sometimes because of it.

Chicken shawarma was moist and flavourable. Executed on a high level for North America and has that middle eastern flavor. Shawarma is best I have had outside the Middle East and a handful of places in the Greater Toronto Area.

I grew up in London and attended university there. Somehow, I missed this gem of a place until some friends from Western introduced me to Barakat’s Chicken Shawarma back in 2003. It was at that moment that my taste buds achieved ENLIGHTENMENT.
It’s the best shawarma I’ve had. Nothing in Toronto, which boasts a myriad of multicultural options, comes close, and all my Western friends from Toronto agree! I’ve also had Shawarma’s here in several cities in the United States, in Europe, and even in the Middle East, yet Barakat still comes out on top. I’ve probably had 50 shawarma’s from Barakat easily*. I make it a point to visit Barakat each and every time I visit London.
I can’t put my finger on why it’s so good. It’s some combination of
a) the way they heat their slow rotating slab of chicken meat to the perfectly near-​but-​not-​so-​quite-​burned level,
b) the proprietary purple paste/​sauce that they spread (turnips?),
c) the savoury garlic sauce, or
d) the re-​heat post-​rolling in the toaster/​grille thingy
I also respect that they use Sriracha hot sauce as their exclusive provider of hot sauce back before Sriracha was popular. Such a decision speaks volumes about the culinary acumen behind Barakat.
One disappointing element has been the price increases. I swear I remember paying ~$ 3.00 for a shawarma back in the day. Per their website, it now costs $ 5.31 now, I believe. This represents a 5−6% annual increase, which is much higher than CPI over the same period. I suppose this is how they, in part, financed their expansion into the much larger second location on Western Road. Despite the price increases, I’ll happily pay up each and every time I visit London.
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* Including the «Tony’s Special» dish (essentially, a deconstructed shawarma) in my count at 1.5x a regular chicken shawarma

Since moving to London from Windsor 2 years ago, I still hadn’t tried the local shawarma. A friend took me to this place one day. I have to say this is tops! I ordered the chicken shawarma without hot sauce. It tasted fresh, the veggies were fresh and the staff were really nice.
I had also ordered the baba ganouj, which is another favourite of mine. I recommend this place to everyone.

If you’re wandering the Richmond Row in London, you might here murmurs in passing about something called Bearcat. As the night progresses more and more people will mention this «Bearcat… bearcat… BEARCAT.»
If you’re hearing this, NO, the people of London are not obsessed with some sort of mythical furry creature that is the hybrid of both Bear and feline, it is in fact a mispronunciation of the extremely popular Middle Eastern restaurant which has taken London by storm, not Bearcat… Barakat!
These folks have got it down to an after bar science. As the droves of drunkin students and bar stars gather like that of hungry zombie hordes they seldom need to wait as the staff here have dozens of beef and chicken shawarma on the grill and ready to go. At $ 5.31 each ($ 6 even taxes in) it’s the quickest, cheapest and most delicious cure for after bar munchies.
This was far and away one of the best cooked shawarma sandwiches I’ve had since my days in the middle eastern Canadian town of Windsor, ON.