Like Feeding Family
"The eyes eat before the stomach” is an expression that Mustafa Omar keeps in mind when creating the Turkish-style menu at his restaurant, Pita Bell Kabab. Though the restaurant is unassuming from the outside, tucked in between a dentist’s office and a car repair shop on Carling Avenue, the smell of charcoal-grilled meats wafting from the kitchen will pull you in even before you set eyes on the food. Upstairs in the dining room, the warm interior, plush turquoise booths, wood carvings and hanging lanterns are a surprising contrast to the austere exterior. It’s the first in a series of pleasant surprises.
Next is the menu, full of dishes typically difficult to find in Ottawa. There’s pide, a Turkish-style flatbread that is sometimes referred to as Turkish pizza, that you can top with a selection of seasoned meats and cheese. On the list of sides, among the fatouche and tabouli is kubba, fried balls of bulgur wheat, ground beef, onion and spices (variations of which can be found in many Middle Eastern countries). The menu centres around the Turkish-style kababs made with lamb, beef and chicken — simit, shish taouk, and Omar's take on a traditional Adana kabab (named after the city in Turkey), spiced with chili and onion, and one with pistachio. Omar imports crushed pepper from Turkey to season certain meats, such as the filet mignon. You can order a whole lamb stuffed with grape leaves. He makes aryan, a Turkish salted yogurt drink, in-house. For dessert, the kunafa is made of spun semolina pastry that's layered around a mild cheese centre, soaked in a sweet rose syrup, topped with pistachios — and there's enough to share.
But the best way to experience Pita Bell is with one of its family platters: consisting of a variety of charcoal-grilled meats and vegetables served over pita bread and spiced yellow rice with raisins and nuts plated in a copper vessel of impressive length. A sight to behold, it’s worth assembling a group to tackle the feast.
Omar, owner and chef at Pita Bell, grew up in a Turkmen community in the Northern Iraq city of Kirkuk, where he first discovered his love of food. Food has always been a family affair: members of Omar’s family worked in restaurants in Iraq, and he later worked in kitchens in Turkey. He immigrated to Canada in 1994, first settling in Hamilton. When he moved to Ottawa in 2000, he knew that he wanted to bring something different. He worked in construction and, as he built a life of his own in Ottawa, he felt nostalgic for food from home. He experimented with recipes for family and friends at first.
“We used to come together for family gatherings, and I used to do the Adana kabab.” The reactions to his rendition of this skewer and encouragement from a friend pushed him to bring it to the masses.
“It was very tough in the beginning,” Omar says. As with any new restaurant bringing a lesser-known style of food to a city, informing the public is not an easy task. His restaurant first opened its doors in August 2015. After just six months, Omar’s
business partner withdrew, but his desire to bring something unique to the city inspired him to persevere. “I want to do something when people come; they feel it’s something different than other [restaurants],” he says. This vision, paired with the experience he had gained while working in construction, helped him navigate obtaining a permit for one of the city’s first charcoal grills (a few more have opened since.)
“Back home, 85 to 90 per cent of the restaurants have charcoal there,” Omar says. The difference that the charcoal makes is palpable, adding an incredible smokiness to the kababs and grilled vegetables.
This difference is appreciated by many, judging by the large groups that come to Pita Bell. “75 per cent of the customers come with their family,” Omar says. They would regularly host tables with multiple families in pre-pandemic times, eating communally in a section dubbed the “family section,” where 15 to 20 guests can sit together. To accommodate this arrangement, Omar imported large copper platters from Turkey. The restaurant truly is a point of gathering for families, including his own: his eldest son, Mohammed, works in the kitchen, and his daughters, Fatima, Aysha and Zaynab work in the front of house.
Omar attributes Pita Bell's success to his emphasis that staff provide the same care and attention he has always brought to his home cooking. “Any food you make, if you don’t eat it or don’t feed it to your family, do not give it to the customer,” he says.
Like most restaurants for the past two years, Omar’s ability to adapt and meet changing demands has contributed to his success. In 2019, in response to a growing clientele, he moved the restaurant 500 metres away to a bigger location, staying close to where he first built a sense of community. The arrival of the pandemic six months later presented understandable challenges, but propelled Omar to innovate. He gradually built up a takeout clientele. The pandemic provided him time to reflect on dishes at the restaurant and inspire additions to the menu that continue to be unique. One recent creation is a two- metre-long kabab served on a custom-made equally long copper platter. This platter size serves eight to 10 people in communal gatherings that Omar is thankful to have resumed once again.
“In the beginning, they come by themselves, after they like the food, they bring their family, their relatives and so on,” Omar says. As the pandemic restrictions ease, it is undoubtedly the quality of the food and the welcoming familial feel that draws us back in ever-growing groups.
Pita Bell Kabab
1696 Carling Ave., Ottawa, Ont.
pitabellkabab.com | 613.686.1740 | @pitabellkabab
