Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Food in the Triangle: A Regional Tour
Lebanese, Turkish, Israeli, Greek, and Persian. The kebab houses, mezze counters, and bakeries doing it right.
For a region nobody mistakes for a global food capital, the Triangle has a surprisingly deep bench when it comes to the eastern Mediterranean. Lebanese families have been baking pita and pressing kibbeh here since the 1970s. A Durham falafel shop sells out of pickled mango sauce on weekends. There’s Turkish lahmacun in Cary, Israeli sabich in Durham, and a Chapel Hill deli where the line wraps the counter every weekday at lunch.
This isn’t a single cuisine — it’s an entire region, and each thread has its own grammar. Lebanese leans on lemon, olive oil, and raw vegetable crunch. Turkish food is about charcoal and yogurt. Israeli food borrows from everywhere and finishes with amba and zhug. Greek is olive-forward and unfussy. Persian — when you can find it — is the most distinct of all, built on saffron, dried lime, and slow-braised herbs.
Here’s where to actually eat.
Sitti — Raleigh
137 S Wilmington St, Raleigh
The flagship of Lebanese dining downtown, and the rare restaurant that’s both special-occasion-nice and weekday-reliable. Sitti is owned by the Saleh family, and “sitti” means grandmother — the menu reads like a grandmother’s table that grew up to feed two hundred people a night. Order the mezze flight if you’re new: hummus, baba ghanoush, labneh, muhammara, and warm pita that comes out puffed like a balloon. The lamb kafta is the move for an entree, but the shawarma plate is the workhorse — a generous pile of chicken or beef over rice with toum that will haunt you. Reservations recommended for dinner. Lunch is calmer and the same kitchen. Street parking on Wilmington or the deck at 220 Fayetteville.
Neomonde Bakery & Deli — Raleigh & Morrisville
3817 Beryl Rd, Raleigh and 10235 Chapel Hill Rd, Morrisville [VERIFY second address]
The institution. Neomonde has been baking pita and stocking Lebanese groceries since 1977, and the deli counter is the kind of place where the line is half UNC grad students and half Lebanese families buying ten pounds of olives. Go for the build-your-own plate: pick two or three salads (the tabbouleh is the standard against which all other tabbouleh should be measured), a meat or falafel, and a stack of pita that’s still warm. The spinach pies are $2-ish and disappear from the case fast. Don’t skip the grocery side — the za’atar, halloumi, and pomegranate molasses are priced better than anywhere else in the Triangle. Open early, closes early. Lunch is the move.
Sassool — Raleigh & Cary
9650 Strickland Rd, Raleigh and 1289 NW Maynard Rd, Cary [VERIFY Cary address]
Sassool is the next generation of the same family — Cherie Saleh, daughter of Neomonde’s founder, opened it as a faster-casual cousin to her parents’ place. It’s brighter, the salad case is bigger, and the lentil soup deserves a cult. The chicken shawarma wrap, with garlic sauce and pickled turnips, runs around $11 [VERIFY] and is the lunch I’d send any out-of-towner to without a second thought. Both locations have ample parking and patios that don’t suck.
Sababa — Durham
2812 Erwin Rd, Durham
If you’ve only had falafel from a college food truck, Sababa will rearrange your understanding of what a chickpea can do. This is Israeli street food done seriously — falafel fried to order, hummus that’s whipped to a near-pudding, and laffa bread the size of a steering wheel. Order the sabich pita if it’s on the board: a stuffed pita with fried eggplant, hard-boiled egg, hummus, tahini, amba (that pickled mango sauce locals lose their minds over), and zhug. Cash and card both fine. The space is small, the line moves fast, and the patio is the play in spring and fall. Parking in the strip lot, which fills up — come at 11:30 or 1:30, not noon.
Bosphorus Restaurant — Cary
329 N Harrison Ave, Cary [VERIFY]
The Triangle’s most serious Turkish restaurant. Bosphorus does the things Turkish restaurants should do and rarely do here — house-made yogurt, charcoal-grilled adana kebab with the right amount of fat in the lamb, and lahmacun (a thin Turkish flatbread topped with minced lamb) that comes out blistered and rolled up around lemon, parsley, and red onion. Get the iskender if you’re hungry: lamb doner over crisped pita, drenched in tomato sauce and brown butter, finished with a dollop of yogurt. It’s a $20-ish [VERIFY] dish that ruins you for everything else for a day. BYOB last I checked [VERIFY]. Worth the drive from anywhere in the Triangle.
Taverna Agora — Raleigh
326 Hillsborough St, Raleigh [VERIFY current address]
Greek done in a converted house with one of the better patios in downtown Raleigh. The menu is built on small plates — saganaki (the flaming cheese), grilled octopus, spanakopita, dolmades — and you should order more than you think you need. The lamb gyro is fine. The grilled octopus is the dish to come back for, charred and tender with capers and lemon. Lively at night, especially the patio in spring and fall. Reservations strongly recommended on weekends.
Mediterranean Deli, Bakery & Catering — Chapel Hill
410 W Franklin St, Chapel Hill
The Franklin Street lunch line that’s been moving every weekday for decades. Med Deli is half cafeteria, half family-run institution — a glass case full of twenty-plus salads (the kibbeh, the muhammara, the cucumber-yogurt), a kebab grill in the back, and a bakery turning out fresh pita all day. The combo plate is the move: pick three salads and a protein, get a stack of pita on the side, and find a table on the patio. Lunch rush is 12:00 to 1:00 sharp — go before or after if you don’t want to negotiate the line. Parking on Franklin is hopeless; park in the Rosemary Street deck and walk two blocks.
Kipos Greek Taverna — Chapel Hill
431 W Franklin St, Chapel Hill [VERIFY]
A Giorgios Bakatsias restaurant (he runs a half-dozen places across the Triangle, all worth knowing), and Kipos is his Greek showpiece. More expensive than Med Deli down the street and meant for a different occasion — proper sit-down dinner, a wine list, a garden patio that’s one of the prettiest in town. Order the whole grilled fish if it’s on the board, and don’t skip the loukoumades (Greek doughnuts with honey and walnuts) for dessert.
The Persian Gap
This is the honest part: the Triangle is thin on Persian food. There’s no full Persian restaurant in the region that I’d send you to without caveats [VERIFY — this changes, and new spots open]. Your best bet for tahdig, ghormeh sabzi, or a proper plate of saffron rice with barberries is to drive to Cary’s international groceries (Grand Asia Market and the halal markets nearby) and cook it yourself, or to wait for the occasional Persian pop-up that appears at the Durham Food Hall or Transfer Co. Food Hall. If you know a spot I’ve missed, the email’s at the bottom.
How to order at a Mediterranean counter
A few rules from someone who’s spent too much money learning them:
Always order one more salad than you think. The case is full of things you don’t have at home — muhammara, foul, fattoush, beet-and-walnut salads. Two salads is a lunch. Three is a meal. Four is dinner for two.
Trust the daily specials. If something is written on a chalkboard, it’s because the kitchen wanted to make it that morning, not because corporate sent a memo.
Pita is not a side. It’s the utensil. Don’t ask for a fork for the hummus.
Toum is garlic, garlic, garlic. That fluffy white stuff next to the shawarma is whipped raw garlic and oil. Use it sparingly the first time. Then use more.
Bring cash to the bakeries. Half these places have a $10 card minimum or a “the machine is down today” sign that’s been up since 2019.
The Triangle’s eastern Mediterranean scene is one of the quietly great things about eating here. It doesn’t get the national press that the barbecue and the new American restaurants do, but it’s older, deeper, and runs through more family kitchens than anything else on the local food map. Eat at all of these. Then go back to your favorite once a week until they know your order.
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