First Look: Jimmy’s Adds a Beirut-Style Shawarma Bar to Enmore Road

Sydney isn’t short on bars. Wine bars keep on coming, and before that small bars, and before that cocktail bars. But shawarma bars? They’re a little harder to come across. “I travel to Beirut at least once or twice a year,” says Jimmy Dee, owner of Jimmy’s Shawarma. “We’re very involved in the Beirut nightlife and thought we’d combine the Lebanese street foods and culture over here.”

On Enmore Road, the new bar’s vision is a full Beirut-style hangout: shawarma alongside Lebanese beers, wines and arak-based cocktails, plus live Arabic music once a week. Often, it’s Jimmy belting notes on the mic while bouncing between keyboards and drums. The liquor licence has only just come through, but Jimmy’s Shawarma opened in late December, so the shawarma has taken centrestage so far.

“I’m finding a lot of non-Arabic people don’t know what a shawarma is,” Dee says. “They think it’s a kebab – but everyone who tries it keeps coming back.”

He’s made it his mission to educate his diners on the difference between Beirut-style shawarma and the kebabs Sydney knows so well. While you can find traditional Turkish-style doner kebabs in pockets all over our city, many shops use mass-produced cones of meat. These are shaved from the spit, then padded with a trio of lettuce, tomato and onion, plus cheese or tabouli if you’d like.

Here, though, everything starts from scratch. Meat is marinated in-house, sauces are made daily, and nothing touches the spit without first marinating for 12 to 24 hours. Chicken is layered by hand – the breast and thigh fillets stacked carefully, shaved to order, then wrapped in traditional Lebanese bread and flashed briefly on the grill. It comes the Beirut way: loaded with lettuce, chips, pickled cucumber and toum, the creamy garlic and sharp pickles balancing the char on the chook.

The lamb takes a different route. Lean shoulder hits the flat top, not the rotisserie. “The flavour’s better and the meat’s more tender,” he says. It’s finished with parsley, onion, tomato, pickled cucumber and tarator. The velvety tahini sauce lifts the aromatic lamb, making it hard to choose a favourite order.

There’s a third contender, too: beef sujuk. The spicy Armenian-Lebanese sausage is cooked on the spit, a style currently trending in Lebanon. It’s made fresh daily and packed into bread with lettuce, chips, pickled cucumber, tomato and aioli. Vegos and vegans aren’t an afterthought, with crisp house falafel and a fried cauliflower wrap dressed generously with herbs, pickles and the outstanding Jimmy’s tarator.

There are snack packs and burgers, too. And the shawarma – which are a steal at between $12 and $15 – can be wrapped or unwrapped. Fattoush, tabouli and cabbage salad are made fresh daily, bright with lemon vinegar dressing. For dessert? Pistachio-topped serves of knafeh. Everything’s classic, matching the old cinema posters and artwork lining the walls.

Every recipe comes from Dee’s mum. “She’s been cooking 10 meals a day for 70 years. This is the type of shawarma I grew up eating – and I just want to share it with everyone.”

Jimmy’s Shawarma
178 Enmore Road, Enmore

Hours:
Tue to Thu 5pm–11.30pm
Fri & Sat 5pm–1.30am
Sun 5pm–10.30pm

@jimmys.shawarma