Founded in 2018 Ozi Lala was born of founder Ozi’s love for authentic Levantine street food; falafels, halloumi, shawarma… the lush, colourful and exciting dishes of his childhood. Combining his passion for cooking and introducing people to Levent through food, his food truck quickly became his stage, delighting wherever he went. Driven by customer demand, Ozi soon started selling a small range of the condiments and spices that he used made in the truck to his customers.

With the success of his food truck, the growing demand for his sauces and spice mixes, Ozi’s endearing personality and his extraordinary Amba Sauce, in the Autumn of 2019 he applied for, and was awarded a bursary from the Thame Food Festival to be used to develop his jarred sauce and spice business commercially.

When Covid struck in 2020 an wiped out his season of events with his food truck,  resiliant Ozi, in seeing the delight his sauces created, made the bold decison to sell his beloved truck and pivoted his business into his retail sales. By late 2020 the full Ozi Lala Levantine Kitchen range was launched.

While Ozi Lala’s original sauces were made from his food truck, when this was sold he started working with a small local small-batch production kitchen to produce and replicate his sauces to his exacting standards. This means that whilst Ozi does not hand prepare every batch, his sauces still contain his original ingredients, made to the same (if a little improved) recipes and still have no additives, no preservatives, no fillers and have no added sugar… and of course taste as good as ever.

Spending time with Ozi is very special, he has an infectious love of life and energy, and his magnetic personality make it impossible not to be won over and to leave him feeling, well… light footed and rather jolly. Born and raised in Turkey, Ozi moved to Prague in 2010 where he worked in film production and commercials. Throughout his life he had always cooked, cooking to entertain, for celebrations, in fact with any excuse he’d be there cooking up the food and tastes of his childhood.

After one of those heavy client days in the office in 2013 he finally realised that he no longer enjoyed the film industry (in fact he loathed it) and that all he really wanted to do was to cook, cook to make himself happy and cook to make others happy.

After a few years working as a chef, and along the way having twins with his wife, he ended up in the UK with his young family, and wanting to spend more time with them brought his food truck, from which his sauces and spice mixes were first made, and for which Ozi is now infamous.

Ozi’s sauces are a romantic reflection of not only his childhood and love of food, but also a celebration of a his upbringing and the food, smells and tastes that surrounded him. When cooking professionally Ozi likes to say that he cooks from the heart, and when you’ve tasted his sauces and spice mixes we think you’ll know him quite well.