The 60 Best Places to Eat in Saudi Arabia

Nikkei cuisine, the quietly fascinating collision of Japanese technique and Peruvian flavor that emerged from migration, finds a fitting home in Jeddah, a city shaped by its own waves of arrivals. Kuuru is a sleek Japanese-Peruvian restaurant with a live cooking station at its center, wooden interiors, and a raw bar that takes full advantage of the Red Sea's proximity. It holds a spot on MENA's 50 Best Restaurants list.

A pilot who couldn't find a steak he liked decided to make his own, and the name comes from two places: the marbling on the beef and the marble prep counters the owners made sure to carry into the dining room. What started as a wooden roadside stall on Prince Turki Road grew into a proper steakhouse, and it placed twelfth on MENA's 50 Best Restaurants list. The oak-fired prime rib and the stacked Marble burger are what most tables are there for.

A blue-and-gold dining room designed by Studio Glitt sets the tone at this Japanese fine-dining restaurant, where the kitchen runs a sushi counter, robata grill, and open kitchen all at once. The menu moves from classical nigiri to grilled black Angus with Korean BBQ sauce, which is either fusion done right or a lot happening, depending on your mood. It holds a spot on MENA's 50 Best Restaurants list.

Portions sized for sharing are the clearest signal at this bright Lebanese café, part of a family-run group that has spread across the Middle East and landed in Riyadh with the same unhurried generosity. The menu runs long and covers all the classics, priced in a way that makes ordering too much feel reasonable rather than reckless. The riz bi halib is the dessert to plan ahead for. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

A tree trunk suspended from the ceiling sets the tone at this Saudi restaurant, where the kitchen draws on five distinct regions of the country and folds in a few wider Middle Eastern traditions alongside. The name translates as "in your heart," which the portions take literally: they arrive built for sharing, so bring a crowd. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the sharqawi rice with caramelised onions gives you a sense of why.

Tucked into a cluster of renovated mud-brick buildings inside Dar Tantora, Joontos feels less like a hotel restaurant and more like wandering into a small medina, narrow passages and cob walls included. The menu leans Middle Eastern with a Mediterranean pull, portions run generous, and the flatbreads alone justify the detour. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks for a place this relaxed about being this good.

The open kitchen counter runs the full length of the room, and at night the lights drop low enough that the whole place feels more like a club that happens to serve very good Japanese food. This is a contemporary Japanese sharing-plates restaurant, and the menu swings between classical and inventive without losing its footing. The Michelin Bib Gourmand reflects the kitchen's knack for keeping things interesting without the bill getting away from you.

A Saudi breakfast spot near the King Abdullah Financial District, Mirzam takes its regional identity seriously, sourcing ingredients and spices from across the country. The spread is designed for sharing: flatbreads fresh from the oven, hummus, foul, salads, and lamb's liver from the Hijaz. The maasoub is the chef's signature dessert, so pace yourself. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

The tatlee, a baked custard finished with crushed pistachio, is reason enough to plan around this traditional Saudi restaurant. The dining room is built to evoke a Najd village, all low seating and covered terraces where you eat on the floor in the old style. The sharing menu moves through the regional repertoire with the kind of generosity that makes you forget it was a menu at all. A Michelin Bib Gourmand.

A glass-fronted kitchen lets you watch the bread come out of the tandoor oven, which is reason enough to arrive early at this bright, slightly retro Hijazi breakfast spot. The menu is built for sharing, with fermented fava puree, moutabbal, and mutabbaq as the main event. Finish with a bowl of sweet areeka. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the portions are the kind that make the price feel almost unreasonable in your favor.

Kabsa flavoured with AlUla's own oranges is the detail that tells you this is the real thing. Tofareya is a casual Saudi restaurant tucked into a village house in Old Town, with two small dining rooms, rooftop tables over a palm grove, and a few chairs spilling onto the pavement. The menu runs traditional regional dishes with some broader Middle Eastern company. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, which tracks with the prices.

Bellbird sits on one of Riyadh's more self-consciously upscale stretches, and the room leans into that with ambient lighting, neutral tones, and the kind of sleek furnishings that photograph well. It's an all-day restaurant, running breakfast through dinner on a menu that moves between Middle Eastern and Mediterranean, with homemade mocktails pulling more weight than you'd expect. Named a Discovery by The 50.

A giant Frida Kahlo mural greets you at the door, setting the tone for a casual all-day eatery that feels more Williamsburg than Riyadh. Flour & Firewood sits in the Sulaymaniyah district and is widely credited with making brunch a going-out occasion in the city. Wooden furniture, trailing plants, and glossy pendant lamps complete the look. A Discovery on The 50 list.

Fresh produce stacked on central columns and chefs working smoking grills in open view set the tone at this Riyadh fast food institution with branches across the city. It's a canteen, not a sit-and-linger spot, built around shawarma, falafel, baba ghanouj, and the fresh juices that made its name. The grilled meats come off with a proper char. Nobody here is overthinking it, which is exactly the point.

Terracotta floors, wrought iron chairs, and lemon trees growing indoors give this Italian restaurant in the Al Faisaliah Hotel the feeling of a Provençal courtyard that took a wrong turn and ended up in Riyadh. Mamo is an offshoot of a family-run bistro in Antibes, and the kitchen runs on the same recipes, now made largely with local ingredients. It lands a spot on The 50 Discovery list, which feels about right for a Mediterranean escape this far from the Mediterranean.

The showstopper is the steak, which is, after all, the point of a steakhouse. Porterhouse is a modern take on the meat-feast format, with cold and hot starters like burrata and a spicy Vietnamese carpaccio warming up the room before the main event arrives. A software engineer turned chef and restaurateur runs the kitchen, which either inspires confidence or raises questions you'll forget after the first bite.

A meat counter running the length of the room announces what you're here for before you've taken your seat. This Japanese robata restaurant brings the charcoal-fired cooking traditions of Hokkaido to Riyadh, all pale wood, industrial bones, and big glass windows. The menu splits between hot plates, cold dishes, skewers off the grill, and a serious sushi section, built for the kind of meal where ordering individually feels beside the point.

A Japanese restaurant in Al Khobar where za'atar, Arabic ghee, and kunafa turn up in the dishes without anyone treating it as a stunt. The chef sources almost everything from local seafood and vegetable markets each morning, so the menu lands somewhere between Riyadh and Tokyo by way of Sri Lanka. The 50 Discovery from The 50 list signals it's on the radar regionally, and a menu that hasn't needed changing since opening suggests the kitchen knows exactly what it's doing.

Dates and Saudi coffee arrive before you've even seen the menu, which tells you exactly what kind of evening Aseeb has planned. The room runs from formally laid tables to floor seating to majlis-style cushions, so the formality dial is yours to set. The kitchen focuses on Najdi cooking, traditionally spiced and quietly rich. The team arrive in traditional dress and tend to book up fast, so plan accordingly.

Red banquettes and vintage chandeliers land inside the glass-and-steel futurism of the King Abdullah Financial District, which is a choice. This is Alain Ducasse's classic French bistro de luxe, a Parisian reference point dropped into Riyadh, with escargot and pâté en croûte on the menu and Édith Piaf on the speakers. A camel Rossini and lamb kafta quietly acknowledge where you actually are, which the district's architecture certainly doesn't.

Daniel Boulud's French bistro sits inside the Four Seasons at Kingdom Centre, spread across pastel rooms that flow from a bar through a lounge to a bright orangery. The menu pairs classic French cooking with quiet nods to the Middle East, and a dedicated cheese chef oversees a serious selection of French fromages, which is either charming or alarming depending on how you feel about being guided through a cheese course.

The floor-to-ceiling glass frames a sweep of Ashar Valley desert that makes it hard to focus on the menu, which would be a shame because the pan-Arabic cooking at this hotel restaurant is the actual reason to sit down. The team navigates the menu with you rather than reciting it at you, which helps. Non-guests can walk in on a restaurant reservation, so the view isn't strictly a room perk.

Velvet armchairs and oversized flower arrangements set the tone at this Italian restaurant tucked among the glass towers of the King Abdullah Financial District. The menu runs through the familiar peninsula, from gnocchi alla Sorrentina to veal Milanese, and the team knows it well enough to walk you through without making it feel like a lecture. The kind of room where a business lunch slides into a long afternoon without anyone noticing.

A 12-seat counter tucked inside Café Boulud at the Four Seasons, where Daniel Boulud's team runs a 10-course French contemporary tasting menu over three hours. The kitchen works directly in front of you, which keeps the meal from feeling ceremonial. Modern French technique bends toward local influence, paired with non-alcoholic wines and mocktails. The name honors both Boulud's son and his father, which is either poetic or a lot of pressure on a tasting menu.

The name means "come and try," which is about as direct as a restaurant can get. This Thai spot in Bujairi Terrace runs on recipes from David Thompson, the chef who has spent decades obsessing over Thai culinary tradition. Expect satay, green papaya salad, and khao soi alongside homemade ice creams, with terrace seating that makes the whole thing feel less like a detour and more like a destination.

The counter seats face the sushi chefs directly, which tends to make the meal feel more like a performance than a transaction. This spacious contemporary Japanese restaurant in central Jeddah spans a main hall, a patio, and a robata section alongside the sushi bar. The menu moves between tradition and tinkering, with Wagyu skewers off the grill and modern tempura alongside freshly pressed nigiri. Plan on four dishes a head and you'll leave comfortable.

A domed stone oven anchors the center of this sprawling Lebanese restaurant inside the Shangri-La Jeddah, and the terrace with its Red Sea views tends to settle the question of where you're sitting. The menu runs from classic Lebanese to dishes with a more contemporary edge, with the kebabs doing most of the heavy lifting. Bespoke mocktails round things out in a city where that matters.

Warm lighting and a menu that runs from breakfast through late evening signal the ambition here: a Lebanese restaurant built for staying a while. The kitchen leans on the classics, generous portions of dips, grilled kebabs, and milk pudding, with a few wider regional nods. The team pushes sharing, which is sensible given the scale of the plates. A Michelin Selected spot that draws a loyal local crowd.

The glass-walled kitchen is the first thing you notice, with one cook slapping bread against the inside of a tandoor, another lowering long skewers into the fire, and a third stirring something deeply fragrant. It sets the tone for the rest of the meal at this North Indian restaurant inside The Zone, an open-air complex of pavilions in Riyadh. The room mixes industrial bones with traditional paintings, and the spicing is careful enough to let the produce speak.

Matt brass shelves lined with Turkish ceramics and a mirrored bar set the tone at this upmarket contemporary brasserie. The menu leans into Anatolian cooking, running from cold mezze dips and pide through lamb, kebabs, and slow-cooked beef ribs before landing on baklava or a traditional rice pudding. The mocktail list is taken more seriously than you might expect, which in Riyadh is less a quirk and more a considered decision.

The wooden terrace hanging over AlUla's largest palm grove is the reason to book a table here. It's a casual Middle Eastern restaurant where the menu leans on Egyptian and Lebanese classics, then nudges them sideways, shawarma in a bao bun being the obvious example. The room inside mixes wrought iron, deep cushions, and dune frescoes, which sounds chaotic but reads as comfortable. A Michelin Selected Restaurant.

A Saudi restaurant at Al Bujairi Terrace where the team spent years traveling the country's regions, pulling local recipes into a menu that looks modern but tastes like it belongs. The cooking is bold and textured, the kind that reads as familiar even if you can't place exactly why. Locals and visitors fill the room in roughly equal measure, and the staff handle the bustle without making you feel it.

The restaurant sits inside a literal glass sphere bolted to the top of Al Faisaliah Tower, so the 360-degree views of Riyadh's skyline come with the architecture rather than a separate ticket. It's a formal modern dining room where the kitchen leans classical, French technique folded into local produce, served by a team that keeps everything running smoothly. The kind of place you dress up for and probably expense.

Halal Kobe beef runs through almost every course here, the kitchen finding new things to do with it across nineteen servings. This is an omakase counter tucked inside Hōchō at the VIA Riyadh mall, where the chef's imagination wanders somewhere between precision and the quietly surreal. The team walk you through each dish in detail, which helps, though you may still surface at the end genuinely unsure what just happened to you.

The terrace looks out over At-Turaif, a UNESCO World Heritage site, which makes the view an argument all on its own. This is a sit-down Khaleeji restaurant from a Bahraini chef who brought her home cooking to Diriyah, with a calm, neutral-toned room and enough air conditioning to make the outdoor seats pleasant year-round. The menu leans into Gulf traditions, lamb mozat on vermicelli rice among them, with a few Mediterranean detours along the way.

The mahalabia with honey is the kind of dessert that makes you think someone's grandmother is running the kitchen, and in spirit, someone is. This is a cosy Lebanese-leaning restaurant built around the owner's memories of home, with a menu that wanders into Turkish territory along the way. Sambousek, grilled kebabs, fresh salads, and dips make up the bulk of it. When the weather cooperates, the terrace is the obvious move.

Fresh dates and Saudi coffee, or gahwa, arrive the moment you sit down, setting the tone for a contemporary Saudi dining room that takes its food seriously without losing the warmth. The Josper grill handles the meats and shellfish, while the menu moves between classical and modern plates, finishing with a kitchen riff on Om Ali that earns its place on the dessert list. It's on the Michelin Guide's selected list.