Beirut eats in layers: Ottoman-era sweet shops, Armenian refugee kitchens, mountain villages cooking in the city, and a 24-hour street food habit. Three days of mezze tables, saj bread, hand-churned sorbet and arak poured in the right order.
Lebanon's first farmers' market, held Saturdays 09:00–14:00 at the Trainstation in Mar Mikhael. Around 60 producers sell mountain labneh, Bekaa olive oil, kishk and makdous, plus a saj station folding manoushe to order.
A Gemmayzeh canteen since 1967, rebuilt after the 2020 port blast. The handwritten daily board lists home cooking: moussaka, loubieh bi zeit, kafta bi sanieh and mjadara, served by waiters who shout your order down the counter.
The Armenian quarter east of the river, where Marash Street stalls sell soujouk, basterma cured in fenugreek paste and dried apricot leather. Badguer's restored courtyard house cooks the same recipes with neighbourhood grandmothers at the stove.
A one-room Achrafieh sorbet shop where the third generation still churns by hand with no stabilisers or milk powder. Ashta with candied orange blossom, mulberry, apricot and a fierce lemon; open roughly 10:00–20:00.
A 1946 Armenian bakery where lahmajun goes into the stone oven at dawn. Order the thin minced-lamb rounds with a squeeze of lemon, plus cheese-and-nigella boereg and lahm bi ajin; baked to order and eaten standing at the counter.
Souk el Tayeb's kitchen, where a different village cook takes the stove each weekday and lays out one region's home food as an open buffet — Bekaa kibbeh one day, Saida fish and freekeh the next, always with a wall of mezze first.
Hamra's roastery since 1935, still running its drum roaster off Rue Nehme Yafet. Order Lebanese coffee heavy with cardamom, or a filter of their Ethiopian single origin; beans are weighed and ground to order at the wooden counter.
An Achrafieh townhouse serving the Armenian-Lebanese cooking that arrived with the 1915 refugees: mante in garlic yoghurt, itch, sou beoreg layered like lasagne, and cherry kebab in a sour morello sauce over toasted bread.
The Spears Street street-food block that never closes, split across separate counters for shawarma, falafel, grills and juices. The chicken shawarma arrives with toum fierce enough to sting; the juice bar runs deep into the night.
Two rival shops of the same family face each other on Damascus Road, both descended from the 1933 original. The falafel is fried twice, packed into pita with pink turnip pickles, mint, radish and tarator, and handed over in a minute.
The Tripoli sweet dynasty's Beirut branch: knefeh bi jebn stuffed into a sesame kaak, plus mafroukeh with ashta and pistachio, halawet el jibn and baklava sold by the kilo. The knefeh trays are flipped behind glass all afternoon.
A Mar Mikhael bar built around arak, Lebanon's twice-distilled aniseed spirit, with a list of small-batch producers from Zahle and the Chouf poured the correct way — arak first, then water, then ice — with pistachios and pickles.