For a first taste of Saudi food in Jeddah, go to Albaik for broasted chicken, the street stalls of Al-Balad for mutabbaq and balila, the central fish market for Red Sea catch grilled to order, and the kabsa and mandi houses that serve rice and meat on shared platters. Jeddah has eaten from the whole Indian Ocean world for centuries, because pilgrims bound for Makkah landed at its port, and many stayed. Yemeni, Hadhrami, Indian, Egyptian and Turkish cooking all sit inside what locals call Hejazi food.
This guide lists twelve places and eating experiences that show that range, from a fast-food counter loved across Saudi Arabia to dinner by the Red Sea. Each entry gives the area, the price level, the best time to go and what to order. If you are planning the rest of your trip, our Jeddah city guide covers neighbourhoods, transport and sights.
How we chose these places: We picked restaurants and food spots that show a distinct side of Jeddah's cooking, are easy for visitors to reach, and have been part of the city's eating life for years. Chain names are given where a chain is the local benchmark; for street food we name the area, because individual stalls change. Opening times follow prayer times and change in Ramadan, so check on the day.
Twelve places follow. Jeddah eats three main meals a day, the last usually after 9pm, and pays in Saudi riyals (SAR), with cards widely taken.
Area, food, price and best time at each Jeddah restaurant
Eating well in Jeddah rarely costs much: Albaik for broasted chicken at any time, Al-Balad street food after sunset, the central fish market near the old port at lunch, Al Romansiah for kabsa and mandi, and Hejazi breakfast bakeries early in the day. Use the table to match a place to your budget and the time of day.
| # | Place | Area | Food | Price | Best time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Albaik | Citywide | Broasted chicken, shrimp | Budget | Any time |
| 2 | Al-Balad street food | Historic Al-Balad | Mutabbaq, balila, sweets | Budget | After sunset |
| 3 | Central fish market | Near the old port | Grilled Red Sea fish | Budget to mid | Lunch |
| 4 | Al Romansiah | Citywide | Kabsa, mandi | Budget to mid | Lunch |
| 5 | Hejazi breakfast bakeries | Al-Balad, old districts | Foul, tamees, eggs | Budget | Early morning |
| 6 | Mandi houses | Al-Balad, south Jeddah | Yemeni mandi and haneeth | Budget to mid | Lunch |
| 7 | Shawarma counters | Tahlia Street and beyond | Shawarma, fries | Budget | Late night |
| 8 | Al Tazaj | Citywide | Charcoal chicken | Budget | Dinner |
| 9 | Tahlia Street restaurants | Al-Andalus, Al-Rawdah | International dining | Mid to high | Dinner |
| 10 | Corniche and waterfront | North Corniche | Seafood, Lebanese, cafés | Mid to high | Sunset |
| 11 | Sobia and juice stalls | Al-Balad | Sobia, fresh juice | Budget | Afternoon |
| 12 | Saudi coffee and dates | Old town cafés, hotels | Gahwa, dates, sweets | Budget to mid | Evening |
Best restaurants in Jeddah to taste Saudi food: full guide
Albaik
Albaik is the restaurant every Jeddah resident sends visitors to first, a fast-food icon of the city that families pack out. Shakour Abu Ghazalah opened the original branch in Jeddah in 1974, and the chain grew out of the city into a Saudi institution with long queues at almost every hour. The signature is broasted chicken: pressure-fried, crisp outside and juicy inside, served with garlic sauce that people buy extra of, a bun and fries. The shrimp meal and the "big baik" chicken sandwich are the other regulars.
Prices are low, service is fast and the menu is short, which is part of the appeal. Branches have separate counters and seating areas, and many open late. Order at the counter or the drive-through, and expect a crowd after evening prayer and on Thursday and Friday nights.
- Area: Branches across Jeddah, including near Al-Balad
- Price: Budget
- Hours: Daily, closing briefly at prayer times
- Order: Broasted chicken meal, shrimp, garlic sauce
It makes a cheap first meal. Go mid-afternoon to skip the longest queues.
Al-Balad street food
Al-Balad, the historic heart of Jeddah and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, comes alive after sunset. Between coral-stone houses with carved wooden rawasheen balconies, stalls cook mutabbaq on wide griddles: thin dough folded around minced meat, egg and leek, or sweet versions with banana and cheese. Balila, warm chickpeas with cumin, chilli and pickles, is served in paper cups, and vendors sell grilled corn, fried sambusa and rich Hejazi sweets.
The food is cheap and freshly made in front of you. Walk Souq Al-Alawi and the lanes around Nassif House, sample a little from several stalls, and finish with a sweet from one of the old confectioners. During Ramadan the area turns into a night market that runs until dawn.
- Area: Al-Balad, historic Jeddah
- Price: Budget
- Best time: After sunset, Ramadan nights
- Order: Mutabbaq, balila, sambusa
Treat it as a food walk, and carry small notes, as many stalls take cash only.
Jeddah central fish market
For Red Sea seafood as fresh as it gets, and a properly local experience, go to Jeddah's central fish market, near the old port on the edge of Al-Balad, is where restaurants and households buy the morning catch. Red Sea species such as hamour (grouper), najil, shrimp and crab are piled on ice and sold by weight, with a daily seafood auction in the afternoon. The best way to eat here is the local way: pick your fish, have it cleaned, and carry it to one of the small restaurants nearby that grill, fry or cook it with rice for a fee.
It is noisy, wet underfoot and smells of fish, which is exactly why it is worth seeing. Ask the price per kilo before choosing, agree the cooking method and charge before handing over the fish, and go hungry.
- Area: Near the old port, Al-Balad edge
- Price: Budget to mid, priced by weight
- Best time: Morning and lunch
- Order: Grilled hamour, sayadiyah rice, shrimp
Seafood lovers should wear closed shoes and arrive before noon.
Al Romansiah
Groups looking for a kabsa classic head to Al Romansiah, a Saudi chain known for traditional rice dishes, and it is a reliable place for a first kabsa. Kabsa is the national dish: long-grain rice cooked with meat or chicken, tomato, dried lime and a spice blend that includes cardamom, cinnamon and black pepper, topped with nuts and raisins. Mandi, cooked with meat suspended over the rice in a sealed oven so the fat drips through, is the other house favourite.
Portions come on large platters meant for sharing, and many branches have floor seating in family sections as well as tables. Takeaway is popular for family lunches on Fridays. It suits groups who want a filling, inexpensive meal of home-style Saudi cooking.
- Area: Branches across Jeddah
- Price: Budget to mid
- Best time: Lunch, Friday after prayer
- Order: Lamb kabsa, chicken mandi, salad and laban
Plan to share a platter: one portion of lamb easily feeds two.
Hejazi breakfast at the bakeries
Mornings, locally, mean bread: the classic Jeddah breakfast is foul and tamees. Foul is stewed fava beans mashed with cumin, olive oil and lemon, sometimes topped with tahini or egg; tamees is a large, round flatbread with a bubbled crust, baked in a clay oven and sold hot by Afghan-run bakeries all over the city. People buy foul in a plastic bag from the bean seller, tamees from the bakery next door and eat in the car or at home.
Look for a crowd around a small bakery early in the morning in the older districts. Add shakshuka or cheese, a cup of sweet tea and you have the cheapest good meal in Jeddah.
- Area: Al-Balad, Al-Kandarah, older districts
- Price: Budget
- Best time: 6am to 10am
- Order: Foul, tamees, tea with mint
Get up early, because bakeries sell out of hot bread fast after 9am.
Yemeni mandi and haneeth houses
Jeddah's Yemeni and Hadhrami communities have shaped its food for generations, and the city is full of small restaurants specialising in mandi and haneeth. Haneeth is Yemeni slow-cooked lamb, roasted in a pit or tannour until it falls apart, served on a mound of spiced rice with a tomato-chilli sauce called sahawiq. Many places also serve saltah, a bubbling stone pot of meat stew topped with fenugreek froth, eaten with flatbread.
These restaurants are plain, busy at lunch and often have private carpeted rooms where groups sit on the floor and eat from one tray by hand. Ask for a spoon if you prefer. Meat is usually sold by portion of a quarter, half or whole lamb.
- Area: Al-Balad, southern Jeddah districts
- Price: Budget to mid
- Best time: Lunch, before the meat runs out
- Order: Lamb haneeth, mandi, saltah
Come with a group, and arrive before 1pm for the most tender meat.
Shawarma counters and Shawarmer
Quick and cheap, shawarma is the late-night street food of Jeddah, carved from vertical spits at countless counters. Saudi shawarma differs from the Levantine kind: chicken wrapped tight in thin bread with garlic toum, pickles and often fries inside, then toasted. Shawarmer, a Saudi chain, is a clean and consistent option with plenty of branches, and independent counters around Tahlia Street and the residential districts compete hard on flavour.
Order two at once, because they are small, and try the "arabi" plate, where the shawarma is cut into pieces and served with sauces and fries. Counters are busiest after the last evening prayer.
- Area: Tahlia Street and across the city
- Price: Budget
- Best time: Late evening
- Order: Chicken shawarma, arabi plate
For a cheap supper, toasted wraps travel well to the Corniche.
Al Tazaj
Al Tazaj is a Saudi chain famous for fresh chicken grilled over charcoal, sold in halves and wholes with rice, garlic sauce, pickles and bread. It sits between fast food and a sit-down meal: quick, filling and lighter than fried chicken.
The grilled chicken has a smoky crust and a lemon and spice marinade. Families often order a whole chicken with rice to share. It is a good choice when you want something simple after a day of sightseeing.
- Area: Branches across Jeddah
- Price: Budget
- Best time: Dinner
- Order: Half charcoal chicken with rice
An easy family dinner; ask for extra garlic sauce on the side.
Tahlia Street restaurants
Prince Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Street, still called Tahlia Street by everyone, is Jeddah's main dining and shopping strip. Along it and its side streets you find Lebanese grills, Turkish restaurants, Italian and Asian dining, specialty coffee bars and dessert cafés. It is where young Jeddawis go out, and it gets busy after 9pm.
Come here for variety and atmosphere. Prices are higher than in the old town, and many places take reservations at weekends. It is also the easiest area for visitors who want an international menu after several days of rice and grilled meat.
- Area: Al-Andalus, Al-Rawdah districts
- Price: Mid to high
- Best time: After 9pm
- Order: Lebanese mezze, Turkish grills, specialty coffee
For a night out, book ahead for Thursday and Friday evenings.
Corniche and waterfront dining
The Jeddah Corniche runs for many kilometres along the Red Sea, and its renovated waterfront has promenades, piers and a growing line of cafés and restaurants. Seafood and Lebanese restaurants with terraces fill up at sunset, when families come out with picnic rugs and the King Fahd's Fountain lights up offshore.
For a full meal, choose one of the established seafood restaurants on the North Corniche. For something casual, buy grilled corn or coffee from a kiosk and walk the promenade. The breeze makes this the most pleasant place to eat outdoors from November to March.
- Area: North Corniche, Jeddah Waterfront
- Price: Mid to high
- Best time: Sunset, November to March
- Order: Grilled seafood, mezze, mint tea
Couples and families alike should reserve a terrace table for sunset.
Sobia and juice stalls
Sobia is the drink most associated with the Hejaz: a cold, sweet beverage made from soaked bread or barley with sugar, cardamom and sometimes raisins, often coloured with flavours. It is everywhere in Ramadan, sold in plastic bottles from street stands, and found year-round in Al-Balad.
Juice shops are the other everyday treat, pressing mango, orange, pomegranate and avocado shakes. In the heat of a Jeddah afternoon, a cold sobia or fresh juice is the best break you can buy.
- Area: Al-Balad and neighbourhood juice shops
- Price: Budget
- Best time: Afternoons, Ramadan evenings
- Order: Sobia, mango juice, avocado shake
Try sobia in Ramadan, when it is made fresh daily.
Saudi coffee and dates
Coffee here is a hospitality ritual. Saudi coffee, gahwa, is lightly roasted, golden and flavoured with cardamom and sometimes saffron or clove. It is poured from a dallah into small cups and served with dates, and it is the first thing offered to guests in a Saudi home. Traditional cafés in the old town and hotel lobbies serve it, alongside Hejazi sweets.
Accept with your right hand, sip, and gently shake the cup from side to side when you have had enough; otherwise the host keeps refilling. Specialty coffee shops across Jeddah also do modern takes on the drink.
- Area: Al-Balad cafés, hotels, specialty shops
- Price: Budget to mid
- Best time: Evenings
- Order: Gahwa with Sukkari or Ajwa dates
Nothing explains Saudi hospitality faster. Shake the cup to say no more.
How to choose where to eat in Jeddah by budget and area
On a tight budget, Al-Balad and the chains cover every meal. Breakfast foul and tamees, a mutabbaq at night and an Albaik or Al Tazaj meal in between cost very little and are some of the best food in the city. Mid-range travellers get the most from the fish market and the kabsa and mandi houses, where a shared platter feeds several people.
For atmosphere, split your evenings between the old town and the sea. Al-Balad is about heritage buildings, narrow lanes and street stalls; the Corniche and Tahlia Street are about modern Jeddah, families out walking and late dinners. Hotels and the waterfront host most of the higher-end restaurants, while the northern districts have the newest openings.
Dining times run late. Lunch is usually from about 1pm, and dinner rarely starts before 9pm, with restaurants busy until midnight or later, especially on Thursday and Friday nights. Many smaller places close briefly at prayer times, so if a door is shut, wait twenty minutes.
Hejazi dishes to know before you order in Jeddah
The Hejazi dishes to know in Jeddah include saleeg, rice simmered in milk and chicken broth, maglouba, mabshoor, mutabbaq, balila, foul and tamees bread. Hejazi cooking is the regional food of Saudi Arabia's west coast, and menus in Jeddah use names you will not see in Riyadh. Knowing a handful of them makes ordering easier and lets you find dishes visitors usually miss.
Saleeg is the comfort food of Taif and Jeddah: short-grain rice simmered slowly in milk and chicken broth until creamy, served with roast chicken on top and a pool of ghee. It looks plain and tastes rich. Mabshoor and maglouba appear at family restaurants; maglouba, the "upside-down" dish of rice, fried aubergine and meat turned out of the pot, came with Levantine and Palestinian families and is now a Jeddah favourite. Ma'asoub, a dessert of crushed bread or flatbread mashed with banana, honey and cream, is eaten for breakfast and as a sweet.
Among the snacks, look for mutabbaq, sambusa (crisp triangles of pastry filled with meat or cheese, essential in Ramadan) and luqaimat, small fried dough balls drizzled with date syrup. Harissa in the Hejaz is not the North African chilli paste but a smooth porridge of wheat and meat, cooked for hours. Seafood dishes include sayadiyah, fish cooked with caramelised onion rice, and fried fish served with tahini sauce.
Drinks are a small world of their own: sobia, laban (salted drinking yoghurt), tamarind juice and karkade, a chilled hibiscus drink. Coffee with cardamom closes most meals, and black tea with mint or habak, a local wild mint, is served after lunch.
A one-day food route through Jeddah
A one-day food route through Jeddah starts before 8am with foul and hot tamees at a bakery in the older districts, moves to the central fish market for an early lunch, rests indoors through the hot afternoon and ends at sunset in Al-Balad with mutabbaq, balila, Saudi coffee and dates. This order covers the city's range without too much driving.
Start before 8am at a bakery in the older districts with foul and hot tamees. Mid-morning, head to the central fish market to watch the trading and choose a fish for an early lunch, cooked at one of the restaurants nearby. Spend the hot afternoon indoors, at a museum or a mall, with a cold juice or sobia on the way.
Around sunset, walk into Al-Balad as the stalls fire up their griddles. Eat a mutabbaq and a cup of balila, browse the lanes around Nassif House and stop for Saudi coffee and dates in an old-town café. Finish late with a drive along the Corniche, a shawarma or an Albaik meal by the sea, and a walk on the promenade when the air has cooled. This is how many Jeddah families spend a weekend evening, and it is the easiest way to see why the city calls itself the bride of the Red Sea.
Tips for eating out in Jeddah
When eating out in Jeddah, order before the call to prayer, because shops and some restaurants pause for each prayer. During Ramadan, restaurants close in daylight and open at sunset for iftar, then stay open late, and eating in public during fasting hours is not allowed.
- Prayer breaks. Shops and some restaurants pause for each prayer. Order before the call or plan a short wait.
- Ramadan rules. During Ramadan, restaurants close in daylight and open at sunset for iftar, then stay open late. Eating in public during fasting hours is not allowed.
- Seating sections. Many restaurants still have family and single sections. Follow the signs or ask the staff where to sit.
- Eat with the right hand. When sharing a platter, eat from the part in front of you and use your right hand.
- Cards and cash. Cards and phone payments work almost everywhere. Keep small cash for street stalls.
- No alcohol. Alcohol is not served in Saudi restaurants. Order fresh juice, laban or Saudi champagne, a sparkling apple and mint drink.
Menu prices in Saudi Arabia carry 15% VAT, in force since July 2020, and restaurants must either include it or show it clearly as an extra. Some upscale and hotel restaurants also add a service charge, so check the bill before tipping; where none appears, around 10% is a common gesture but not required. Jeddah eats late. Many cafés and restaurants on the Corniche and around Al Balad stay busy well past midnight, and the Albaik branch on Sitteen Street often has queues after 00:00, so a 21:00 dinner booking counts as normal.
Planning a trip to Jeddah? Read our Jeddah travel guide, compare hotels in Jeddah or search flights.
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