Shish Cafe Inc

This location (I was told by one of the folks who used to work there) was closed due to the construction on University Ave. There are plans to get s new location up and running again so stay tuned!

I believe this is the best Mediterranean in the Midwest
At this weird location, any complaints about the service are simply because no one is being nice to the servers.
Seriously, just look them in the eye while you order.
Great for vegetarians, tons of veggies, not all carbs and hummus.
get the fried squash dish and you will have dreams about it later.

Two words: beef kabob. The meat is always flavorful and moist, the vegetables grilled to perfection, and the hummus to die for.

Even the best food can’t make up for poor service. And the food at Shish Café wasn’t good enough to even come close to making up for it. We waited and waited, then were rushed through ordering, weren’t checked on, and had to flag our server down like a taxi during rush hour to get the check.
I had the chicken kabob. The chicken was juicy with good seasoning. The hummus was bland (to me) and my whole dish looked like it had been slopped on the plate. My husband liked his lamb stew, but wasn’t anything to write home about.
All in all, for the price ($ 40 for two, no apps, no drinks), I won’t eat here again. I’m surprised that this has 4.5 stars, especially in Madison, where decent restaurants are pretty easy to come by. Disappointed about it, was hoping this would be the place to come for great Mediterranean food.

My family and I have been going to Shish Café for years. The food is always delicious; I don’t believe I’ve ever had anything I disliked there.
That said — admittedly, service can be a little spotty at times. However, they will take carry-​out orders if you call in, and will quote you fairly accurate times as to when they’ll be ready. If I go to eat there, I just figure it’ll take a while and order some Turkish coffee.

Pretty good falafel, cooked to the right consistency and loaded with an authentic variety of spices that are hard to forget. Falafel is top-​notch, but they are losing on the shawerma front. With shawerma I tend to expect juicy gyro-​style strips cut off of a spit, but what I got was my mom’s chicken.
By no means is that a bad thing. My mom knows her Arab food. Again the spices really set it apart, giving a great kick to what otherwise might have been bland but very fresh chicken.
Sandwiches are served in the Levantine laffeh bread, which is much larger and thinner than pita. This allows for much-​appreciated larger portion sizes (fuck you Med Café).
Hummus was decent, nothing too special. Wouldn’t order again, but that’s mainly because their menu has such an interesting selection of items that I haven’t seen at too many Mediterranean restaurants. I would be remiss to stick with such tame options next time.

Food: 5
Décor: 3
Service: 2
Amazing food, but service was disappointing. I came here around 6:30pm for dinner on Monday night.
1. Chicken Shawarma, 13
Delicious, definitely one of the best Mediterranean I’ve had. The chicken was nice and moist, and the plate came with a ridiculous amount of hummus. Paired with hot, fresh bread
, and this dish overall was amazing. I almost opted for the chicken kabobs, but the server recommended this instead.
Service was extremely slow. I had to request fresh bread from another server, and it took two tries before I got my check. Then it took forever to pick up my check.

Great food, reasonable prices. If you’re in the neighborhood, it’s definitely a good choice, but I wouldn’t drive across town for it. The falafel was probably the best I’ve ever eaten, and the shawarma was tasty, if slightly dry.
The wine list could be improved. As it currently stands, there are a few hand-​written varietels listed (merlot, cabernet sauvignon), but not the maker or vintage. I went with the iced tea instead, which had a nice hint of cinnamon.

Being so close to Shish, I thought I would try it out even though its not much to look at from outside.
So glad I did. The authentic middle eastern music sets the mood for the cozy atmosphere.
We had the Shish Sampler and it was the best Mediterranean cuisine I have ever eaten, and I am Lebanese. The hummus, eggplant and tabouli were perfectly seasoned and the lamb was moist (hard to find). The portions were large, and could have easily fed another person.
Anyone who doesn’t rate this place for its amazing spice mixes that complement so seductively, doesn’t have a palette for flavor. The flatbread alone is worth the visit. Will be going again and again just to try each of their menu items. If the sampler has created this much happiness on my tongue, I cannot wait to explore the rest of the menu!
Favorite restaurant in Madison!

Easily the best restaurant in Madison.
The only thing that I would stay away from would be the fattoush.

My favorite restaurant in Madison, hands down. It’s making me too hungry to write about it in detail except: yum.
My favorites: Jibne (but ALWAYS need more bread), tabouli, and the hummus you can eat with a spoon. Their house salad is also fantastic, if simple.

The food was really good. The dishes were kind of dirty. And our service just sucked.
Why would you give two people three small pieces of bread to eat a bowl full of hummus? I’d only go back if it was for take out.

Holy crap, I thought hummus was hummus, but at this place it is transcendent. Everything we had was all amazing, from the Dolma (stuffed grape leaves) to the eggplant and the Damascus Spinach. Even my mothers lamb kabobs smelled great, despite the fact that I don’t eat meat.
The atmosphere is very nice, with loads of brass plates and lamps and random Turkish items strewn about the place – very homey. All the staff was really friendly and helped people less informed about the cuisine pick out something they would like. Who would think that rice could be as buttery (without butter) and delicious as they make it here? Highly recommended.

By far the best middle eastern food in Madison, maybe even in Wisconsin. The food here is consistently fresh and flavorful.
It’s the only place in town where I can find good grape leaves, their pita is served warm and the prices are affordable enough to make it a regular stop. Beyond the basics, I highly recommend the Eggplant Munazala and the Mujadara… vegetarian heaven! As a first timer, I would hit up their sampler platters — they cannot be beat.
The service is also excellent. The owner recognizes regulars and goes out of his way to make your patronage feel appreciated, but is never an overbearing presence at your table.
It can get pretty crowded on weekends, so go early and go often!
Overall, I highly recommend this restaurant.

Delicious place for lunch. Pleasant inside, a little ratty-​looking outside… but, oh the food! First-​rate middle eastern, well prepared and served nice and hot. Hummus, as others commented is excellent — mild and well-​balanced. Had the chicken kabob plate and the fowl was everything others have said: juicy, perfectly cooked, and spices were just right. Wife had chicken kabob sandwich which came wrapped in a massive fresh-​baked pita. A little too much bread for her so she picked the chicken and tabouli out — should have ordered the kabob plate.
Service prompt, cheerful without being patronizing. Two of us for lunch with Cokes (free refills… and also free refills on the fresh flatbread basket) about $ 23, and worth every penny. We’ll definitly go back. Thanks, Unilocal

We would have never even thought about going to this place if not for Unilocal.On the outside it doesn’t look like much– just stuck on the end of a small strip mall. We drove right by and almost didn’t see if at first.
The reviews here were spot on though. The service was excellent– friendly, quick and responsive. Extra bread was easily had, and refills were done without ever asking.
And the food was great. The chicken, rice, the various sauces and dips, all well done. I even liked the hummus, and I usually am not a fan of hummus at all.

My family got together here last weekend for a celebration of my son’s graduation from law school and my wife’s birthday. It meant a lot to our family to have dinner together with 6 of us arriving from Madison, Baltimore, Chicago, and Colorado. We made a reservation for 4 three weeks ahead of time, but then we did apparently confuse the staff by adding two more people several days before the meal. That caused a hostile reception from the hostess, who seemed to feel we were somehow gaming her reservation system and we further aggravated her by arriving 17 minutes late (from 4 different cities), when she had warned us over the phone she would give away our table after 15 minutes.
However, the host more than made up for it and he was truly wonderful to us. Now about the food and drink: hummus was great and the crunchy pita crackers were fine when we could get more of them. Wine choices were limited, but we liked the Romanian cabernet, offered at a reasonable $ 22/​bottle. We had the Shish Feast for 6. The lamb chops were way overdone. Rice was good. Overall a somewhat distressing experience for me (the dad) because of our reservation issues, but the food was decent and the host went way out of his way to make the evening special, thus the 3 star rating despite my concerns noted above. In fairness, it was a Saturday night on a very busy graduation weekend in the city. Prices were more than fair, service was just ok. Host was wonderful and charming. What a night!

My wife and I were looking for a new place to go out for dinner on Friday night, and I used my Unilocal application on my iPhone to search the areas close to home. It was hard not to click on Shish Café, as it was one of the few Five Star restaurants in the immediate area. We ended up going there solely on the reviews. Thanks Unilocalers!
As others have stated before, you would never know anything Five Star worthy would reside in this building. I almost drove past Shish Café even though I previously saw a photo, and I hesitated before getting out of the car. But from the moment we walked in, we were instantly greeted by the head chef and owner Rabeh Bnyat and were seated by a friendly waitress. Not bad for Friday night dining in Madison.
We both had Syrian tea to start, my wife had iced and I had hot. Warm baskets of flat bread were also provided. Our waitress was on top of refills, which is always great.
When it came time to order, we went with a few dishes to share. We got the starter plate (essential for the flat bread), falafel, and kabobs. Everything we ordered was something I would order again. I personally recommend the chicken kabob out of all three kabob options, as that was some of the most flavorful and delicious chicken I have had in a long time.
Overall, Shish Café was an excellent dining experience. We’ll definitely come back for more!

This place was the highlight of my trip to Madison. Thank you Unilocal,for helping us find a really incredible place to eat. We got here about 10 minutes before they were about to close, and it kind of felt like they didn’t want to take any new customers. I would have been more understanding if I had actually known they were about to close — we thought they were going to be open for several more hours. We were eyeballed for a few minutes with no one coming to talk to us, but then were seated after a few minutes of waiting.
Immediately the four of us went after the Shish sampler for 4, though we were worried that there might not be enough food. Fear not, fellow Unilocalers. If you come in a group of 4, I highly recommend it. There was so much food, and the waitress (I believe who was the owner’s wife) helped us out by spacing out the food into all the appetizers and the entrees.
I will say, that they could improve the bread. I wish it was a bit more doughy, and softer as well — it’s kind of hard to eat when it all just crackles when you take a bite. But, it’s the only thing I’d change. The spices on each dish were great though I’ve forgotten much of what I’ve eaten. I did enjoy the hummus and falafel in particular on the appetizers side.
The entrees were lamb chops and chicken and steak kabobs. My God, I’ve never had lamb like that before. It was incredible. And, as a point of pride for our table, we polished off every bit of food. I think the owner may have heard us talking about the show Man vs. Food, where the guy on the show does all these food challenges, but he came out at the end of the meal, thanked us for coming and said he was proud of us eating everything. He gave us a $ 10 gift certificate to use on a future date, and joked (I think) that he’d give us $ 20 if we finished everything a second time.
Truly a great place, I would love to go back. They ended up locking the doors after us, about an hour after they officially closed — we were never rushed once. Serious hospitality. I was thinking about the star system and was about to go 4, but honestly, for Madison, it had to be a 5 star place. I had been to too many mediocre to decent places in Madison, but this joint redeemed the town.

This is the first place I tried out purely on Unilocal reviews, and it was great.
It’s a small restaurant tucked away in a small strip mall on University. Our server had some trouble talking above the background music, but the service was friendly and always quick. Amongst our group we sampled the lamb, chicken, fish, and steak, and everyone loved their meal.
My girlfriend and I also had their Arabic coffee, which was potent. We considered getting an appetizer, but are happy that we didn’t because the dinner portions were huge.