Beirut Restaurant — Restaurant in Jacksonville

Absolutely fantastic and if you like great food and great prices this must be your next stop. I would give them more stars if I could.

My wife and I visited last night for a late Valentines Day/birthday celebration dinner since we were not together the day of. I am so grateful that I found and decided to book a reservation for us here. The process was super simple. I called in a week ago and booked a table for the two of us.

Our server was Melissa and she was fantastic. She was really nice and patient as we took our time ordering and she made sure to explain what each dish was for us.

We began our night with some drinks. My wife ordered wine and I have to note that they have some really nice wines on their wine list. They also have some common cocktails, but what really surprised me was that they had Arak on the menu. Arak is a middle eastern anise spirit i.e. licorice. I ordered an Oriental Nights cocktail that was made from Arak, Creme de Cassis, orange zest, and tonic. The wine was good and the Arak cocktail was nice. I haven't seen Arak served in the USA before so I was super impressed to see it here. This place is legit!

We took a while ordering because the menu is extensive. They have a family dinner option way of ordering that we were about to order, but we wanted to try too much different stuff so we ended up ordering a bunch of different plates instead. We ordered the Mezze Vegetarian Platter which included hummus, baba ganouj, labneh, lemon potatoes, and fattoush. This in and of itself was a ton of food. The hummus was some of the best I have had outside of the middle east. The baba ganouj and fattoush was solid, but the labneh and lemon potatoes were really the show stealers of the platter. Oh god, actually I didn't even mention that the platter came with two falafels. Now I have never been that into falafels, but Beirut's falafels will convert you. They were so tasty with the sauce they had on top.

At this point I also ordered a second cocktail called The Beirut Arak that consists of pomegranate juice, simple syrup, Arak, and club soda. The drink came with a cute little umbrella and you can almost close your eyes and picture yourself on a sweet beach club in proper Beirut.

I am actually salivating as I write thinking about how happy this feast made me. The platter came with pita bread that was warm and made sure we could get every ounce of hummus, baba ganouj, and labneh into our mouths. We were feeling pretty stuffed at this point, but we had already ordered more food.

We ordered grilled haloumi, mighty kafta, and soujuk. The grilled haloumi was good, but I will be truthful here and say I wish they added lemon on top. That would have made it better in my opinion. But haloumi is great by itself, so it was still amazing. They give you a good amount too! The mighty kafta is homemade kebab baked between bread. At this point I knew I couldn't eat more so I had to stop, but the mighty kafta was superb. I hardly touched our soujuk which is ground beef sausages. They come with a little bit of a spicy taste, but nothing crazy.

I was so happy with this meal that I found myself dancing along to the music that was playing in the restaurant. Seriously this food is great. At this point my wife and I were wishing we had dressed in sweats instead of date clothes.

Melissa came back and she surprised us with two desserts! We got to try Beirut Nights and the Osmaliah. Both have semolina pudding which is just perfection. The Osmaliah has some stringy buttered dough on top and it is just a wonderful pairing. We were pretty stuffed at this point, but we found the inner strength and courage to eat it all.

The most surprising part of the night really was the bill which was super reasonable considering the food was of the highest quality and the service by Melissa was superb. I have been in Jacksonville about three years now and this is the best food and service I have gotten. I am telling y'all to go and eat here and enjoy some real authentic middle...

I really enjoy coming to Beirut. I do not come every week, but I do consider myself a regular customer... Things have seemed to change. I ordered chicken kebabs with vegetables, and asked for a salad instead of rice or fries ($18) ..No problem, Just looking for quality food..... The chicken was way over cooked, no salad, and the vegetables less than appetizing, and such a poor portion for the price.. I ordered hummus that had way too much tahini in it... The bag of pita bread soaking in oil because the bag was not properly packed... I returned the food because the prices are so high now (I understand inflation). But worse, was the staff response. Music was blaring when I came back in (I love latin music, and to dance, that is not the issue), but I had to ask to turn it down because I could not hear the staff. I communicated in a friendly manner, asking for the manager. Nobody seemed to be in charge or take responsibility. They said they would call the boss...The boss didn't answer. A young women came up, would not look me in the eye, looked at the computer screen walked away, she seemed frustrated to me...and then came back, and said I needed to sign the receipts, full refund.. Fine. I had to ask her to look at me directly to communicate, she did reluctantly. The impression I got is that this place is doing so well they don't really care about the food they serve, or the service they give. And I guess they will continue in the same way. However, I do not recommend this restaurant anymore, and will certainly not return. I'd rather cook all of what I ordered at home. I used to enjoy coming to Beirut. But it seems they are so great, they don't need to provide any good service, or food, and just expect people will pay for bad service. Feel bad, because I like to support local business, and I have had many good experiences there before. It is not about the money, but they way they treat people, and lack of...

We arrived around 8 and the main dining room had about 6 tables with guests while the outside was at capacity. That worked for us since outside they were smoking hookah and since we were with our kids we didn't want to be around that. Plenty of distance between tables inside and servers wearing masks. I've had Lebanese a couple times at different places and each seems to be a little different. On to the food... We had the hummus which was creamy and nutty from the tahini, if you are expecting something like you get at the grocery store you will be surprised. The dolma were listed as just grape leaves, there is another with meat under the hot mezze. The grape leaves were really tasty, the bright acidity cut through the richness of the hummus I ate beforehand. We were a bit disappointed with the spiced eggplant, while it said it was smoked that is really the only flavor we could taste from it. The kibbeh was excellent, it arrived piping hot out the fryer so the outside was nice and crunchy and the beef inside was nicely seasoned and paired well with the yogurt sauce. The mighty kafta was interesting; I ate it like I eat a quesadilla and piled the pickled peppers, tomatoes, and cucumber on top with the sauce. Next time I'll skip it and just order the kebab because the filling was good but there wasn't enough especially after adding on everything else. My wife also had the beef shawarma bowl (leftovers pictured, I forgot to snap a picture when it came out) which tasted pretty good but didn't look like shawarma but instead strips of marinated beef with onions, peppers, and tomato. The shawarma i was expecting was the kind that is slow roasted on a vertical spit...this wasn't it. One more thing, service was pretty slow. They seemed to be slightly understaffed for the number of guests. Not sure if that is normal or just that it was much busier...