The Greek dish made from meat roasted on a vertical spit and served in pita is gyros. Meat is stacked on a tall rotating spit, cooked beside a heat source, and shaved in thin slices from the browned exterior as diners order it.
In Greece, pork is the usual meat, although chicken is also common and lamb or beef may appear. A typical pita wrap includes tomato, onion, fried potatoes, and tzatziki, though regional and restaurant variations are widespread. The Greek word gyros refers to turning or rotation, describing the spit’s movement.
Gyros belongs to a broader family of vertical-spit dishes. It is closely related to Turkish döner, Arab shawarma, Canadian donair, and Mexican al pastor, but those are not interchangeable names for the Greek dish. Souvlaki is another common mix-up: it consists of small pieces of meat grilled on skewers, rather than meat shaved from a vertical rotisserie.
The technique developed in the Ottoman world, and gyros became established in Greece partly through the movement of people from Asia Minor after the 1922–23 population exchange.