Rotterdam hairdresser celebrates twentieth anniversary

The Rotterdam shawarma store El Aviva celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the hair salon this week. The dish came about more or less by chance in 2003 when hairdresser Nataniël ‘Tati’ Gomes ordered his own version of a shawarma sandwich at the shoarma shop.

The combination of French fries, shoarma, tomato, cucumber, garlic sauce, sambal and melted cheese is now available in Suriname and Indonesia.

A hair salon contains an average of 1800 calories. That is slightly less than the average man or woman needs to get through the day. “It doesn’t really matter to me,” says a customer to broadcaster Rijnmond. “I just eat it because I like it.”

New snacks are often invented. The frikadel special or the fries war have not always been there either. But the rapid rise of the hair salon is unprecedented. Not long after owner Dervis Bengü of El Aviva put the dish on the menu, you could already order the kapsalon throughout the Netherlands.

The composition may also change from time to time. What remained was the aluminum tray and fries, but in many places shawarma was replaced by döner or fish. There is also considerable variation with the sauce and cheese. There is also a kapsalon with peanut sauce (the ‘wassalon’), a hairdresser’s sandwich and a slightly less unhealthy one vegetarian variant (less than 800 calories).

After only a few years it turned out that the hair salon was also successful abroad, often under its own Dutch name. In Belgium and Germany, the hair salon has now become established, as well as in Suriname (with peanut sauce).

Last year, a reporter from Rijnmond accidentally discovered that he could also order a hair salon in the Indonesian capital Jakarta. Dutch comfort food praises the owner of restaurant Smaklek. Instead of fries, the bottom of the dish in Jakarta consists of yellow rice.