Marble

From street stall in 2018 to restaurant

It began in 2018 as a wooden street stall on Prince Turki Road and opened as a full restaurant two years later. Self-taught chef Abdulrahman Alsowailem, a pilot, runs the kitchen and co-owns the business with Meshal Alakeel. The name refers to the marbling in good beef and to the marble counters where the meat is prepared.

Smoked brisket, ribs and the Marble burger

Cooking is over open flame and oak wood, and brisket, ribs and rib-eye are smoked in-house for at least eight hours. The Marble burger, ordered with two or three patties, and the prime rib are the most-ordered dishes. The prime rib is a 400 g ribeye cooked over oak and served with mash, kale chips and house mushroom sauce. Sides and desserts change with the season.

The art deco dining hall and prices

The dining hall seats about 50 in an art deco room, with the grill as the focal point, and it draws a young local crowd. Prices are at the upper end of casual dining in Riyadh. Marble also runs a second outlet at Ithra in Dhahran.

Abdulrahman Alsowailem's path from pilot to pitmaster

Alsowailem began cooking because he struggled to find a steak in Riyadh that met his standards. The 50 Best organisation calls Marble the city's "temple of meat and fire cooking", and the restaurant climbed to No. 12 on the 2026 MENA list, announced in Abu Dhabi on 3 February 2026. The steak dishes stay fixed, while the chef brings back ideas from his travels as rotating specials, so ask what is new before ordering the usual burger.

Sources: The 50: Marble on MENA's 50 Best Restaurants; The National: MENA's 50 Best Restaurants 2026. Facts checked November 2026.