14 Gouraud Street, Gemmayzeh, Beirut
Open Tuesday to Sunday
Lebanese Fine Dining · Since 1974
Three generations of a Beirut family, charcoal fire, cedar smoke and the mezze of our grandmothers — served slowly, in a stone house on Gouraud Street.
The House
Maison Cedar began in 1974 as a nine-table kitchen in a Gemmayzeh stairwell, where our grandmother Souad cooked for the neighbourhood and refused to write anything down. The recipes are still hers. The fire is still charcoal. What has changed is the room around them — stone arches restored by hand, navy walls, and linen set the way she set it for guests she loved.
We keep sixty seats and two sittings a night. Nothing is rushed, nothing is pre-plated, and every mezze still arrives in the order she taught us: cool, then warm, then grilled.
Every grill is lit with Lebanese cedar offcuts and vine cuttings. It perfumes the meat before it seasons it.
Our menu is written each Tuesday after the morning run to the Souk el Tayeb. If the sea is rough, the sea bass waits.
Kibbeh pounded in stone. Labneh hung overnight in muslin. Arak poured the way it is poured at home — three parts water.
Souad & Nadim El-Khouri
Signature Plates
A short menu, rewritten each week. These four have never left it — and never will.
01 / 04
كفتة مشوية على الفحم
Hand-chopped lamb and beef, grilled over open cedar, laid on smoked aubergine purée with pomegranate molasses and torn mint.
02 / 04
سمك مشوي بالليمون
Whole Mediterranean sea bass landed the same morning, grilled whole and finished with charred fennel, sea salt and lemon-herb oil.
03 / 04
المازة البيتية
Nine mezze in the order Souad taught us — hummus with toasted pine nuts, muhammara, tabbouleh cut fine, hung labneh with mint.
04 / 04
كنافة بالعشطة
Warm knafeh baked to order, pistachio crumble, rose syrup and a quenelle of ashta clotted cream. Twelve minutes — worth all of them.
The Kitchen
My mother cooked the way the mountain cooks — with what the day gave her. My job is simply not to get in the way of that. We grind our own baharat. We press our own olive oil from the family grove in Bcharre. And we still pound kibbeh by hand, because the machine makes it smooth and smooth is boring.
The Room
Stone arches, navy velvet, brass, and a terrace under the cedars where dinner tends to become midnight.
Guests & Press
“The mezze arrive like a family archive — nine plates and every one of them has a story. I have eaten hummus in Beirut my whole life and this was the first time I stopped talking.”
“Charcoal smoke, cedar and a sea bass cooked to the second. We asked for the recipe and were politely told no. Fair enough — we will simply come back.”
“We came for dinner and stayed on the terrace until midnight. The lighting, the brass, the way the arak is poured — every detail feels considered, never staged.”
Visit
Two sittings each evening. The terrace opens in April and closes with the first autumn rain.
Last kitchen order 45 minutes before closing. Tasting menu served Thursday to Saturday, 19:00 – 21:30.
14 Gouraud Street
Gemmayzeh, Beirut
Lebanon
Valet parking on Gouraud St
from 18:30 · Terrace April to October
Contact
For reservations of six or more, private arch-room dinners, or a question about the menu — leave a note and we will answer within the day.
Reservations
Two sittings nightly, sixty seats. We hold tables for fifteen minutes.