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Food guide

How to find good Lebanese food

Lebanese food is the deepest mezze tradition in the region, which means the right way to eat it is fifteen small plates and no main course at all. It is also, quietly, one of the best vegetarian cuisines on earth.

What separates a good one from a bad one

  • Hummus that is silky and warm — Properly made hummus is smooth to the point of pourable, generously oiled, often served warm. Cold, thick, grainy hummus is the default everywhere else and the fastest way to judge a kitchen here.
  • Bread made on site — Pita arriving hot and inflated. Manakish baked to order is even better.
  • A long mezze list — Twenty or more cold and hot small plates. This is the cuisine's centre of gravity and a short list means a short kitchen.
  • Real tabbouleh — Overwhelmingly parsley, with bulgur as a minor component. If it arrives as a grain salad with flecks of green, it has been inverted.
  • Charcoal for the grills — Shish taouk and kafta over charcoal. Same rule as every grill tradition in the region.

What to order

  • A mezze spread — Hummus, moutabal, tabbouleh, fattoush, labneh, muhammara, kibbeh, and bread. Skip the mains entirely the first time.
  • Manakish — Flatbread baked with za'atar and olive oil, or cheese. Breakfast food, available all day.
  • Shish taouk — Garlic-marinated chicken skewers with toum — the fierce garlic emulsion that is half the reason to come.
  • Kibbeh nayyeh — Raw minced lamb with bulgur and spices, if you see it. A celebration dish.
  • Knafeh — Cheese pastry with syrup, eaten warm. Order it before you think you have room.

Where to find Lebanese food

Open listings put 776 Lebanese restaurants across the US. These are the cities and campuses with the most of them.

Cities with the most

New York, NY 30 Portland, OR 14 Washington, DC 12 Baton Rouge, LA 12 Miami, FL 11 Houston, TX 11 Dearborn, MI 11 Toledo, OH 10 Orlando, FL 10 Los Angeles, CA 8 Chicago, IL 8 San Diego, CA 7

Campuses with the most within a mile

Touro University 11 Baruch 10 The New School 9 NYU 8 CUNY Graduate Center 8 Hunter 7 GWU 5 Portland State University 4 Suffolk University 3 Pace University 3

A few to start with

Counts are listings in Overture Maps open data (September 2026), counted by the town in each address. Independent places only in the examples above, and they are a starting point rather than a ranking.

How Savor Scout looks for it

Lebanese searches read for mezze depth and for hummus texture language in reviews, plus toum and manakish, which are specific enough that they only appear when a kitchen is doing the real thing. Because Lebanese is often signed as generic Mediterranean, the matcher works from dish names rather than the cuisine label.

Find Lebanese food near you →

Looking in a particular city?

Each of these opens Savor Scout with the location already set, so you can say what you want and it searches from there. It covers 1,000 US cities in total — these are simply the largest.

All 1,000 cities →

When you might want this

Where to eat when half the group is vegetarian Where to eat with a big group Where to take the team for lunch