OUR STORY
One chef. One kitchen. Thirty-seven years.
👨🍳
Bassam Esbeit
Chef · Owner · Since 1989
From home to Mississauga
Chef Bassam Esbeit grew up cooking the food of the Levant — the broad, warm-hearted cuisine that stretches from Lebanon through Syria and into Palestine. When he opened Tarboosh in 1989, he didn't invent anything. He just cooked what he knew.
For thirty-seven years, he's been in the kitchen. Not behind a desk. Not running a chain. In the kitchen — the same one, on Confederation Parkway, since day one.
Why the menu hasn't changed
A lot of restaurants change their menu every season. Tarboosh hasn't — on purpose. The falafel mix is the same one Bassam started with. The shawarma marinade hasn't been "updated." The hummus is stone-ground every morning, the way it was thirty-seven years ago.
That consistency is why grandparents who ate here in the 90s now bring their grandkids. And it's why, when Mississauga's food scene has gone through three complete reinventions, Tarboosh has simply stayed — the table that didn't need fixing.
"The mall chains came and went. We stayed — because the food stayed."
A community kitchen
Over the years Tarboosh has fed weddings at 400 people, Iftar tables for dozens of families, corporate lunches for every major office tower in City Centre, and countless Sunday dinners with cousins. Catering is not a side business — it's half of what we do, and we take it seriously.
If you've got a room to feed, call Chef Bassam. He'll answer.
A FEW MARKERS ALONG THE WAY
1989
Tarboosh opens on Confederation Parkway.
2000s
Catering becomes half the business.
2,000+
Reviews across Google, Tripadvisor, Uber Eats.
37
Years in Mississauga, and counting.