The concept of Wild Peeta is as refreshing as the shawarmas it serves. This Emirati restaurant chain serves fast food (not junk food, a point the management go to great pains to emphasise) that is trans-fat free, halal and made from locally grown produce. What’s more, the menu features playful takes on traditional shawarmas, from Khajeeli to Italian tomato to Mexican bean.

The restaurant first appeared in Oud Metha last year, only to close and reopen recently in Dubai World Trade Centre (a short walk from the metro stop). While it will do great lunchtime trade with its location so close to Jumeirah Emirates Towers and DIFC, the quality of the food is such that it’s worth making the journey for.

The venue is bright and breezy, and the free Wi-Fi encourages you to stick around (when we visited, guests were almost outnumbered by laptops); there’s also a Twitter feed projected on the wall, and a wipe-clean glass ‘thought wall’ where creative guests can scrawl their business plans, sums or limericks. To underline how far ahead the venue is compared with its fast-food rivals, there are even separate recycling bins for plastic, paper and foil. Yes, that’s right – recycling. Don’t worry, we’d nearly forgotten what it meant too.

We forewent the ‘thought wall’ and went instead to the Subway-esque counter, where we were invited to choose a white or wholewheat wrap (with the venue’s health-conscious goals in mind, we opted for wholewheat in fear of being escorted off the premises), a ‘secret’ sauce (from Italian tomato and Arabian tahina to Mexican bean), beef, chicken or broiled vegetable filling, and a colourful collection of vegetables and condiments. Somehow the nimble-fingered server behind the counter managed to cram an unfeasible amount of filling into a neat, tight wrap. My date supplemented her chicken and Italian tomato wrap with a bowl of curried lentil soup, while I greedily added a Moroccan salad, a bag of salt and balsamic vinegar potato chips, and some sort of murky fruit juice to my Khaleeji Saloona beef wrap. We ended up at the till with a mountain of food, which was purchased for a mere molehill of money (Dhs68, for the record).

The soup proved a winning start: packed with lentils and brown rice, a sprinkle of turmeric gave it a playful edge – it could have almost been a meal in itself. My couscous was rather dry and would have benefited from a tad more vinaigrette and raisins, but I made up for this with the juicy wrap sauce. The beef was a little tough, but the combination of the spicy sauce and the plethora of fresh vegetables packed snugly beside it made for a fun and filling meal. The chicken, as my date can attest, is a better meat to order, though the Italian tomato didn’t have the same welcome kick as the Khaleeji Saloona. Our meal was washed down by a bottle of ‘Magic’, an interesting combination of apples, oranges, Earl Grey tea and mint leaves. While I’m sure the offbeat taste would appeal to some, I was put off by its cough-syrup smell.

Once we’d finished, I happily crammed the wrappers and plastic bowls into the recycling bins, a move that was nearly as satisfying as the meal had been; in my heightened environmentally aware state, I even contemplated taking the metro home… ‘contemplated’ being the operative word. For those who can’t wait for Wild Peeta’s inevitable expansion across the city, they also deliver.

The bill (for two)
1x Moroccan salad and beef wrap meal deal Dhs29
1x Red lentil soup and chicken wrap meal deal Dhs29
1x Magic juice drink Dhs10
Total (excluding service) Dhs68