Where the listings come from
Business names, addresses, phone numbers and websites start from open geodata: the Overture Maps Foundation places dataset, which includes Foursquare OS Places and OpenStreetMap contributions. We keep Mediterranean, Greek and Middle Eastern restaurants, including Lebanese, Turkish, Persian, Afghan, Moroccan, Armenian and Israeli kitchens, gyro, shawarma, falafel and kebab shops, and grills that describe themselves as halal; halal meat markets, Middle Eastern grocery stores, bakeries without a dining menu, sandwich shops that only use pita bread and hookah lounges are not listed here. We remove duplicates (the same name and street in the same city) and drop businesses that are reported closed or that asked to be removed.
A city gets its own page when it has at least two Mediterranean restaurants; towns with a single listing appear on their state page, so no page is built around one business.
What a listing shows
95% of listings have a phone number and 67% link to the business's own website. Opening hours appear only where the business or its owner has published them. We do not show ratings or reviews, and we do not copy text from other directories.
How features are marked
Greek is marked from the restaurant’s name and business category. Lebanese, Turkish, Persian, halal, falafel, shawarma, gyro, kebab, Israeli, Moroccan and buffet are marked from the name and category or when the restaurant’s own website names them — we read the site text with fixed word rules and check samples by hand. A restaurant without such words is left unmarked rather than guessed. A halal label means the restaurant uses the word, not that a listing confirms certification; ask the restaurant how its meat is sourced and certified. These marks are applied by software — name rules, wording rules run over each business's own website, and an AI model that reads that website — not written by hand. A mark from a website is kept only when the wording is found on the page, so a business without a mark may still offer the service — call to check.
Corrections from owners
Owners can correct their listing for free — new hours, a changed phone number, a moved address, services they offer. Corrections are applied and the listing is marked "Updated by the owner" with the month. Owners can also ask for a listing to be removed, and the removal is permanent. Write to contact@mediterraneanfoodatlas.com.
How lists are ordered
Top 10 lists and the order of each city page follow how complete a listing is — website, phone, hours, services — and whether the owner has checked it. No business can pay for a position.
How often it is updated
The directory is rebuilt from the current data every night, so owner corrections usually appear within a day. The underlying geodata is refreshed from new Overture releases.