Falafel near me
Falafel shops and Lebanese cafés near you, sorted by distance, with Food Standards Agency hygiene ratings.
Find them near you
Search by postcode or use your location to find results near you.
What makes good falafel
Lebanese falafel is made from soaked, uncooked chickpeas, often mixed with broad beans, blended with herbs, onion, garlic and spices, then deep-fried to order. Good falafel is crisp and dark outside and bright green and fluffy inside. Falafel made from tinned chickpeas or reheated from earlier in the day tends to be dense and dry.
What this list shows
These are food businesses with falafel in their registered name. Many Lebanese restaurants and shawarma shops also make excellent falafel, so it is worth checking the Lebanese restaurants on our main map too.
How to eat it
In a wrap with tahini sauce, tomato, parsley, pickled turnip and radish, or on a plate with hummus and salad. Falafel is naturally vegan when fried in vegetable oil, but ask if you need to be sure, because some kitchens share fryers with meat and fish.
Hygiene ratings
Each listing shows the Food Standards Agency rating for that premises and the date of its last inspection. A rating of 5 means very good hygiene.
Where to find them
UK councils with the most matches in our directory.
Related dishes
- 01Falafel
Falafel are deep-fried patties of ground chickpeas or broad beans with herbs and spices, crisp outside and green-flecked within. A Levantine street food and mezze staple, eaten in a wrap with tahini or as part of a spread. The Lebanese version uses chickpeas, herbs and a lot of coriander and cumin; the good one is fresh-fried and shatteringly crisp.
- 02Hummus
Hummus is a purée of chickpeas, tahini, lemon and garlic, the cornerstone of the Lebanese table. The good version is smooth, generous with tahini and lemon, and warm-savoury rather than the thick, bland supermarket kind. Served with a pool of olive oil and warm flatbread, it is the first thing to judge a Lebanese kitchen by.
- 03Tabbouleh
Tabbouleh is a parsley salad, finely chopped, with bulgur, tomato, mint, spring onion, lemon and olive oil. Despite the Western version, it is a herb salad first and a grain salad a distant second: it should be overwhelmingly green, the bulgur a minor player. Bright, sharp and fresh, it is one of the essential Lebanese mezze.
- 04Fattoush
Fattoush is a Levantine bread salad of crisp fried or toasted flatbread, tomato, cucumber, radish, herbs and a sumac-and-pomegranate dressing. Sharp, crunchy and tangy, it is the other great Lebanese salad alongside tabbouleh, using up stale bread and defined by the sourness of sumac.