Food and Restaurants

The largest and best-known Shisha/Hookah/Nargila café in Riyadh is Shallal. It is an exotic complex of indoor and outdoor venues for socializing with tea, Middle Eastern snacks, and traditional water pipes.

Al-Nakheel, Khozama Centre 7F (next to Al-Khozama Hotel). Though widely acclaimed as the best restaurant in Saudi Arabia, Al-Nakheel’s décor is unchanged since the 1970s and is run-down rather than rustic. It offers an uninspired buffet (no a la carte menu) of the usual Arab offerings. The main clientele appear to be visitors, tour groups, and hotel guests. Dinner buffet costs SR110, not including taxes, service, or drinks.

Sheraton Riyadh offers a very rich buffet for breakfast, covering a wide spectrum of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern delicacies in addition to regular European food. The Italian restaurant in the ground floor of Sheraton Riyadh is particularly outstanding.

Located in Al Faisaliah Hotel is an expensive restaurant that offers both a delectable cuisine and a spectacular ambience. The restaurant is located in the golden globe that tops Al Faisaliah Tower and offers panoramic views of the city of Riyadh. The restaurant is open for lunch, dinner and high tea on weekends and offers a Modern European cuisine.

This very popular Turkish restaurant is packed during the evening hours. Meat is the name of the game here, and it comes in numerous tasty variations. SR30.

Quite good rendition of TexMex with a typical American look-and-feel. The Buffalo Wings / Tenders are recommended and are excellent with the hot sauce. SR60.

Korean-run eatery offers reasonably authentic Korean, Japanese, and Chinese food at reasonable prices. The restaurant is popular with the local Asian community. SR50.

This is the Middle East's first gourmet burger joint. They specialize in a wide array of classic and gourmet burgers as well as mouth watering sliders, fresh salads, and sides. The Burger Boutique is an upscale casual restaurant that opened first in Kuwait and has since expanded to Riyadh. Prices are moderate to expensive but definitely worth it for the ambience and great food.

This Taiwanese-Saudi-run restaurant offers a variety of Asian foods, but it is recommended to indulge in the Taiwanese or Chinese menu items. The restaurant accepts mixed gender groups. The tables on top of the illuminated fish tanks near the center of the restaurant are particularly stunning. Getting here can be difficult since it is located in a side strip mall- look for the pagoda top and the neon Chinese gate. SR80.

This chain Italian restaurant caters primarily to families. The selection is decent, but quality is lacking. The Spaghetti Curry dish - fried chicken, peas, pineapple curry pasta - sounds weird, but tastes good. There is space for bachelor groups (all males), though the room is off to the side with limited service. SR60.

This is a basic chain steak house with an unexciting array of steaks and other meat products. Prices are around SR60.

This cheap and cheerful Lebanese eatery offers tasty shawarma, kebabs, dips, and more. Shawarma is priced at SR3/6.

A South Indian restaurant with a loyal clientele thanks to its tasty food, low prices, and generous portions. At lunchtime, one can get four standard curries (meat or veg), pickles, fresh veggies, rice, chapattis, pappadums, dessert and tea, all with infinite refills, for the scarcely credible price of SR6.

This immensely popular chain does excellent thick, fresh juice cocktails, but the main draw here is the famous shawarma, arguably Riyadh's best. Sandwiches are small, but cheap, at SR3. The menu (available in English) also covers freshly baked pastries, kebabs and some Lebanese treats. Under SR10.

Iranian restaurant offering a good range of kebabs and a better range of mezze like tabbouleh, hummus, eggplant, vine leaves, etc. Single portions under SR10, huge set meals are priced at SR21.

This restaurant is set up similar to a cafeteria with a grab-a-tray and-point-service mentality, but there is a great selection of Arabic food from shawarma to soups, grills, stews and desserts and the style of ordering makes it easy to choose. Shwarma SR4, full meals SR15-20.