Restaurant in Beirut, Lebanon
Book early. Occasion dining that delivers.
Ranked #9 at the World's 50 Best Restaurants MENA 2024, Em Sherif is Beirut's strongest choice for occasion dining — a formal room with glittering chandeliers, live Arabic music, and traditional Lebanese home cooking. Booking is near impossible, so reserve weeks ahead. Best for celebrations and business dinners where the setting needs to carry as much weight as the food.
Em Sherif is the right choice if you are marking a milestone, hosting a business dinner that needs to impress, or want a single meal that distils traditional Lebanese home cooking into a setting that signals occasion. It ranked #9 at the World's 50 Best Restaurants MENA 2024, which puts it in a peer group that includes rooms like Le Bernardin in New York City and Arpège in Paris in terms of prestige positioning. If you want a casual weeknight dinner in Beirut, look elsewhere. If you want the most formally considered Lebanese dining experience in the city, this is the booking to chase.
The visual register here is deliberate and theatrical: glittering chandeliers overhead, lavish textiles in deep pink and blue, and live Arabic music threading through service. The setting is designed to evoke the feeling of eating at the chef's own table — the kind of home that happens to have a full waitstaff. That framing matters when you are deciding whether the experience matches the price tier. The room alone carries enough weight to justify a special-occasion booking before the food arrives.
Em Sherif's recent profile has grown alongside the World's 50 Best MENA list, which launched to consolidate recognition of the region's dining scene. Being ranked #9 on that list in 2024 is not ceremonial , it reflects sustained attention from a judging body that also covers rooms like Aponiente and Alain Ducasse at Louis XV. That credential should calibrate your expectations: this is a venue operating at a level that takes its identity seriously.
The dinner experience at Em Sherif is the full version , live music, the complete theatrical arc of the room at capacity, and the social energy that comes with an evening crowd marking occasions. For a special celebration or a business dinner where atmosphere does part of the work, dinner is the booking to make.
Lunch, where available, tends to offer a quieter version of the same kitchen. For visitors with a packed itinerary who want to experience the cooking without the full-evening commitment, a lunch sitting can be the more practical call , and potentially easier to secure given the venue's booking difficulty. The food is the same; the room operates at a different register. If the meal itself is your priority over the full theatrical experience, lunch may serve you better. If you want Em Sherif as an event, book dinner.
Em Sherif is a near-impossible booking. The 50 Best MENA ranking has materially increased international demand, and local demand for special-occasion dining was already high before that recognition. Book as far in advance as your plans allow , several weeks minimum for dinner, and do not assume walk-in availability on any day. If you are visiting Beirut with a fixed travel window and this meal matters to you, treat the reservation as the first logistical task, not the last. For broader Beirut dining context, see our full Beirut restaurants guide.
Against Beirut peers, Em Sherif sits at the leading of the occasion-dining category by a clear margin. Albergo Rooftop offers Lebanese cuisine in a setting with strong visual appeal and is meaningfully easier to book , if the view and atmosphere matter as much as the cooking, it is a credible alternative. For a special occasion where the food itself needs to be the centrepiece, Em Sherif carries more authority.
Beihouse and Buco operate in different registers , both are worth knowing about for nights when you want a strong meal without the full formal commitment that Em Sherif requires. If your group includes diners who are not invested in the occasion-dining format, one of those alternatives may produce a better evening overall.
The clearest decision rule: if this is a celebration and only one meal in Beirut is going to carry the weight of the occasion, book Em Sherif. If you have flexibility and want to spread the itinerary across different dining styles, the 50 Best ranking is not a reason to book it on every visit , save it for when the occasion calls for it.
It is possible but not the format Em Sherif is designed for. The experience is built around occasion dining , the live music, the room, and the food-sharing culture of Lebanese cooking all work better with two or more. Solo diners can absolutely eat here, but you will get more from the meal in a group of two or four. If you are eating alone in Beirut and want quality Lebanese cooking, a less formal option may suit the solo context better.
Book as early as you can , several weeks in advance for dinner is a minimum given the venue's near-impossible booking difficulty. The World's 50 Best MENA 2024 ranking at #9 has added international demand on leading of a local occasion-dining audience that was already filling the room consistently. Do not leave this to the week of your trip.
The kitchen focuses on traditional Lebanese home cooking using endemic Lebanese produce. The format leans into sharing, which is how Lebanese meals are designed to be eaten. Go in expecting a spread rather than individual plates, and let the kitchen guide the progression. No specific dishes are confirmed in the data available, so treat recommendations from the front-of-house on arrival as the most reliable guide to what is leading that day.
For Lebanese cuisine in a strong setting, Albergo Rooftop is the most direct comparison and easier to book. Beihouse and Buco are worth considering if you want quality dining without the occasion-dining formality. See our full Beirut restaurants guide for a broader view of the city's options.
Yes , it is one of the strongest choices in Beirut for a celebration. The combination of a formal, visually impressive room, live Arabic music, and a kitchen ranked #9 at the World's 50 Best MENA 2024 gives a special-occasion dinner genuine weight. It compares favourably to other high-end occasion rooms in the region. Book dinner rather than lunch if the full experience is what the occasion calls for.
No dress code is confirmed in the available data, but the setting , chandeliers, rich textiles, a 50 Best-ranked dining room , signals smart casual at a minimum. For dinner, err on the side of dressing up rather than down. A business-casual standard will not look out of place; very casual clothing likely will.
Three things: first, the booking is hard , treat securing a reservation as step one, not an afterthought. Second, this is a sharing-format meal rooted in traditional Lebanese home cooking, so come hungry and come with people you want to eat with properly. Third, the room is part of the experience , the chandeliers, live music, and textiles are not decoration, they are the context in which the food lands. First-timers who arrive expecting a standard restaurant format may be caught off guard by how much the setting shapes the meal. That is a feature, not a problem, if you are prepared for it.
| Venue | Awards | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Em Sherif | As the quintessential Lebanese dining experience Em Sherif offers guests a taste of traditional home cooking in a truly opulent setting designed to make you feel like you could be eating food served at the chefs own kitchen table Glittering chandeliers, lavish textiles in rich shades of pink and deep blue and live Arabic music perfectly complement the endemic produce from across the country.; World's 50 Best Restaurants MENA 2024 - Rank #9 | — | |
| Albergo Rooftop | — | ||
| Beihouse | — | ||
| Buco | — |
Key differences to consider before you reserve.
Solo dining here is possible but not the natural fit. Em Sherif is built around the communal rhythm of Lebanese mezze and sharing plates, and the theatrical room — live music, chandeliers, full tables — rewards groups of two or more. If you are dining solo in Beirut, a smaller neighbourhood spot will feel less isolating; Em Sherif makes more sense when there is someone across the table to split dishes with.
Book at least four weeks out, and more for weekend evenings or public holidays. The 50 Best MENA #9 ranking in 2024 added significant international demand on top of already high local demand for milestone celebrations. Last-minute availability exists only sporadically, and banking on it for a special occasion is a bad idea.
The menu is grounded in traditional Lebanese home cooking, and the kitchen's reputation rests on that foundation rather than on modern reinvention. Lean into the mezze spread and let it run — that is the format the restaurant is built for. Ordering selectively from a long sharing menu rarely works here; commit to the full arc.
Albergo Rooftop is the closest comparison for occasion dining, with Lebanese cuisine in a setting with strong city views, though it sits a tier below Em Sherif on formal recognition. Beihouse is a better pick if you want a more relaxed atmosphere with strong local food credentials. Buco works if the occasion is less formal and you want something with a different format entirely.
Yes — it is one of the clearest cases in Beirut where the setting, food, and energy all align for milestone dining. The glittering chandeliers, live Arabic music, and theatrical room build a complete experience, not just a meal. The 50 Best MENA #9 ranking gives it external credibility that matters when you are entertaining guests who will ask where you are going.
The room is dressy by design — chandeliers, lavish textiles, live music — and the clientele dresses to match. Smart evening dress is the practical baseline: a jacket for men and evening wear for women would not be out of place. Showing up in casual clothes at a venue ranked #9 in 50 Best MENA is a misread of the room.
Come with time and an appetite for the full format — this is not a quick dinner. The experience is built around traditional Lebanese home cooking served at a pace that fills the whole evening, scored by live Arabic music. Ranked #9 in 50 Best MENA 2024, it carries real credentials, but the format rewards guests who arrive hungry and unhurried. Book well ahead and treat the reservation as you would any hard table in a major city.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
