Lebnani Mediterranean Kitchen & Bar — Restaurant in Watertown

After missing out on a true meal a month ago, we had to return for the full works. Still wonderful cuisine. Adding a star for three reasons: Buying extra space to include a bar, building a bakery right next door to make their own fresh dough and baked goods, and for continued if not improved really delicious food.

Everything was incredible. I might have to add this to my regular diet of fine and healthy meals. I appreciate my companion introducing me to this fare. From start to finish everything excelled.

We wanted so many starters our wait staff suggested we get the cold appetizer platter. Good recommendation. We also ordered two pies - spinach and cheese. I prefer the cheese.

As someone who doesn't like eggplant, I loved the Monk - which is basically a chopped salad with this main ingredient, but can also be a soup or stew. My partner loves the labné - a strained yogurt dish - which on the platter comes as the garlic version. The hummus and olive salad are the right addition to this collection along with traditional grape leaves. The chicken medley soup was what it should be - warm and comforting.

Main dishes were lamb chops on yellow rice with grilled vegetables and the shawarma mix platter of beef and chicken over basmati rice. As someone who cooks, and cooks well, their rice is amazing to me. It's so light you could blow it off of your plate like feathers.

We ordered four spinach pies and an order of beef shawarma with basmati and grilled vegetables to take out. Many thanks to Reem for her fine cooking, cocktail expertise and just general perfection.

This August 2022, it's hard to believe we haven't been to Lebnani for three years but with Covid closings and Lebnani moving their restaurant to the larger space next door to now include a full bar, time passed. The old space they are still keeping to open up a Lebanese bakery and café "Man'oushe" which they are working on now. Thumbs up to the new revamped version of Lebnani.

We mainly dropped in to see my companion's old friend Sammy who owns the place with his wife Reem. She is the bartender if you want to order one of the many special cocktails they offer to patrons. What a drink she made for me. Absolutely beautiful in presentation and a perfect blend of flavors. "Purple Haze" with Empress Gin among other things. (see my photos)

As tempting as it was to get a second one of these, I had to try their own Lebanese drink Ksarak. The miraculous thing about this old country beverage is how when water poured into the clear liqueur in the glass, the two combined turn white in color. (see my video for this effect)

We'd eaten a short time ago so we only ordered a couple of appetizers: the fried cheese rolls I mentioned below in my original review and the grilled shrimp on skewers served on an arugula salad. Both will be ordered again. Looking forward to a lamb dish next visit.

If you like Lebanese food, this is a place to go for the real thing. Very authentic. A very simple appetizer, a thin fried cheese roll, sold for a dollar apiece, was perfect. These would be far more welcome at any bar over the tired standard mozzarella sticks. Served with pita bread, the homemade yogurt with olive oil was thick and creamy. Our chicken shawarma wraps, that also come in beef, where the seasoned meats are cooked on a vertical rotisserie, were juicy and flavorful. No alcoholic beverages are served. Lebanese music videos...

Ok - so the food here is outstanding. We got the stuffed grape leaves, hot trio, and both beef and chicken shawarma. Everything came out hot, fresh, and delicious. We went on a Monday around 5:30PM. I had read a prior review stating the service was on the slower side and when I saw the "help wanted" sign in the window, I figured we might be there for a bit. When we walked in there was only 2 other people sitting at the bar, so I thought it might be ok, but the service was definitely slower than we would have liked. It took a while to get our drinks - at one point I thought they had forgotten about us. Food came out quickly once it was ordered, but from there it took a looooong time to get the pieces in motion for us to leave. We had ordered more pita, but that was forgotten about. She brought us our take-out boxes, but forgot to take the check. She finally took the check with the credit card inside after about 10 minutes and around 20 minutes later she came back and we reminded her she already took the check with our credit card. That was a little scary! Everything was fine in the end, but they had a hefty amount of people picking up take-out orders and only one waitress juggling it all. She was so nice and apologetic and we're very patient people. It's not her fault - she was doing the best she could. We gave the full tip and headed out on our way. We will 100% be back here, but maybe when there is more staff! If you go now, just know you might have a bit of a wait and...

If you took a direct flight to Lebanon you would get your food faster than if you came to this restaurant. Our waitress forgot to bring us our drinks, you might think no big deal right but we ate dinner with not even water to drink… she gave us a bunch of yogurt with no bread, we never even got the bread. Service was terrible. It was a sad experience and I really hope that the owner steps his game up and hires more people like the young lady who works there as a waitress. I saw a couple walk out because they were so frustrated… they never got to order a single thing they waited for at least 20 minutes..The food wasn’t even worth $20 today. Portion of meat was so minuscule compared to the large amount of rice they gave me, she forgot to bring the bread. if you’re gonna come here don’t do it on the weekend. The place is much larger and they have an extra room that they can use if they need to. If you’re the owner and you’re reading this you just need to hire more staff, you didn’t have enough people working on a...