A new entrant on the capital’s thriving restaurant scene, it offers great kebab and a dose of nostalgia for a time when Baghdadis thought nothing of zipping off to Falluja for lunch at Haji Hussein.

“This was the craft of my grandfather,” said Mohammed Hussein, who runs the business that has been in his family since the 1930s, when Falluja was a city of agriculture, smuggling and tribal traditions, not a jihadist haven.

The restaurant, shiny and well lit, is packed most nights, and patrons wait for tables — 15 to 20 minutes or so, something almost unheard-of in Iraq. There are two flat-screen televisions on the first floor, tuned to news channels reporting on the military campaign to retake Falluja from the Islamic State.

“I can’t bear to watch the news,” Mr. Hussein said.

There was one news flash recently that did not escape his notice: The Iraqi Air Force, like the Americans 12 years ago, announced that it had struck his restaurant site in Falluja because leaders with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, were meeting there.