First movement: the mezze
Everything starts with mezze, and it takes far longer than people expect. This is not a ten-minute opening act: it is half the meal. Cold dishes come first, hot ones join them, and the table fills up gradually without anything being cleared away.
This first stretch is as social as it is culinary. Nobody has their own plate, everyone helps themselves whenever they like, and you can turn up ten minutes late without having missed anything. It is a forgiving meal.
Second movement: the grills
Then come the grills, and they are deliberately plain. Chicken taouk, breast marinated in garlic and lemon. Lamb marinated in olive oil. Kafta, minced meat lifted with onion and parsley. Nothing elaborate: the marinade and the fire do the work.
They are served with Lebanese rice, often studded with golden vermicelli, or with whatever is left of the tabbouleh and hummus. This stretch is shorter than the mezze, and quieter.
What you drink
Arak is the traditional companion to mezze: a grape spirit distilled with aniseed, never drunk neat. You cut it with water, which turns it white instantly, and only then add the ice — in that order, or the aniseed seizes on contact with the cold.
Lebanese wine exists too, and it is excellent, particularly from the Bekaa valley. But arak remains the choice that structures the meal: its aniseed clears the palate between two mezze in a way no wine quite manages.
The end of the meal
Lebanese desserts are sweet, unapologetically so, and often scented with orange blossom or rose water. Katayef, small folded pancakes filled with ashta — a milk cream — and pistachio. Maamoul, shortbread stuffed with dates, walnuts or pistachio. Baklava, in fine layers and syrup.
Then coffee. Lebanese coffee is served short, in a small cup, often scented with cardamom; white coffee is not coffee at all but an orange blossom infusion, drunk in the evening precisely because there is nothing in it to keep you awake.
The rhythm, above all
What throws a first-time guest is none of these dishes: it is the length. A mezze meal does not fit into an hour. It stretches, it slows, it starts up again the moment somebody orders another hot dish.
If you are coming for the first time, allow plenty of time and plan nothing afterwards. That is the only real piece of advice.
A plate of Lebanese grills with hummus and tabbouleh