The atlas · A cuisine · Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Jordan

Levantine

Also Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian, Mezze

The cooking of the eastern Mediterranean: olive oil, lemon, tahini and herbs, eaten as a spread of small dishes to share.

Where it comes from

This is part of the Fertile Crescent, where wheat, barley, chickpeas and lentils were among the first crops ever domesticated, around ten thousand years ago. They're still the backbone: bulgur, hummus, lentil soups, bread with everything.

Centuries of Ottoman rule and busy trade routes layered in spices, pastries and grilled meats. The table is built around mezze — many small dishes at once — and the region argues, happily, over who makes each one best.

Where in it

  1. BeirutA city of mezze and bakeries, where breakfast is a manoushe from the oven and a long lunch can run to dozens of small plates — the tabbouleh all parsley.ManakishTabboulehFattoush
  2. AleppoSyria's great northern trading city, long counted among the region's finest kitchens: its own mild red pepper, kebabs with sour cherries, and kibbeh in dozens of kinds.MuhammaraKibbeh
  3. DamascusOften called the oldest continuously lived-in city, known for its sweets, its ice cream beaten with mastic, and bowls of fatteh at breakfast.Fatteh
  4. NablusA hill city in the olive country of the northern West Bank, famous for knafeh, its salty white cheese and olive-oil soap — and for the olive harvest that musakhan celebrates.KnafehMusakhan
  5. JerusalemOld City hummus shops that open early and close when the pot is empty, and ka'ak — long rings of sesame bread — sold from carts with za'atar.Hummus
  6. AmmanJordan's capital, where mansaf is the dish of every big occasion, and downtown falafel and hummus shops feed the city from morning to night.Mansaf

How it cooks

Tahini sauce
Tahini, lemon and water whisked together — it seizes, then loosens to a pale, smooth cream.
Charcoal grilling
Kebabs, vegetables and bread over open coals.
Mahshi
Vegetables and vine leaves stuffed with rice, herbs and sometimes meat.
Kabees
Pickling — turnips pink with beetroot, cucumbers, chillies — for sharpness at every meal.

Always in the kitchen

tahinichickpeaolive oillemongarlicsumacza'atarbulgurparsleymintpomegranate molassesAleppo pepperlabnehseven-spice

Cook from it

Tonight, with what's good in October

Its classics

LevantineHummusChickpeas cooked very soft and blended with tahini, lemon, garlic and salt until silky.No one here has made it yetLevantineTabboulehA salad of parsley — mostly parsley — with tomato, mint, spring onion and a little bulgur, dressed with lemon and olive oil.No one here has made it yetLevantineMuhammaraA thick dip of roasted red peppers, walnuts, breadcrumbs and pomegranate molasses — smoky, sweet, sour and hot at once.No one here has made it yetLevantineFalafelBalls of soaked, raw chickpeas ground with herbs, onion and spice and deep-fried — crisp outside, green and soft within.No one here has made it yetLevantineFattoushA salad of crisp leaves, tomato, cucumber, radish and herbs with shards of toasted or fried flatbread, in a sharp dressing of lemon and sumac.No one here has made it yetLevantineManakishFlatbread spread with za'atar and olive oil and baked hot and fast — breakfast in Lebanon, folded and eaten on the move.No one here has made it yetLevantineKnafehSoft white cheese under a crust of shredded or semolina pastry, baked in ghee until golden, turned out and soaked in syrup, with pistachios.No one here has made it yetLevantineKibbehFine bulgur pounded with lean lamb and onion into a paste, shaped around a filling of spiced mince and pine nuts and fried — or baked in a tray, or eaten raw.No one here has made it yetLevantineFattehLayers of toasted flatbread, warm chickpeas and garlicky yoghurt with tahini, finished with pine nuts sizzled in butter or ghee.No one here has made it yetLevantineMansafLamb cooked in a sauce of jameed — dried, fermented yoghurt — piled on rice over thin bread, with toasted almonds and pine nuts.No one here has made it yetLevantineMusakhanRoast chicken on taboon bread soaked in olive oil and heaped with onions cooked soft with sumac, scattered with pine nuts.No one here has made it yet

Cooked here

No one here has cooked Levantine yet.