The Best Of 2023, According To The Beirut.com Team

As 2023 draws to a close, we at Beirut.com team are reflecting on the year’s highlights, celebrating the best experiences, innovations, and contributions that made an impact on the city’s vibrant landscape. This year, we managed to dish out over 2,000 posts across our platforms, here are the things that stuck out!

Culinary Delights

Best New Spot for Foodies: Odette’s Mexican Taqueria for exceptional Mexican food in a laidback setting. Try their tacos, corn esquites, and frozen margaritas!

Best New Restaurant and Lounge: Bazalt quickly became a crowd-favorite in 2023, with stunning interiors and an impressive menu to boot, it was the ideal intersection between food and nightlife in Beirut.

Most Unique Thing We Ate: Le Flocon Artisan Glacier’s labne and olive oil ice cream takes the proverbial cake! Labne mixed with the award-winning Darmess olive oil made for one of our favorite treats this past summer.

Best New Cocktail Bar: A welcome addition to Gemmayze in 2023, the Asian bar Mii-Yao is where the vibes, Japanese fried chicken, and impeccable cocktails never disappointed.

Cultural Gems

Best Comeback: We were all delighted when Lebanon’s beloved Sursock Museum reopened three years after the devastating 2020 explosion. The free museum is one of the country’s premiere cultural hubs, with new and returning exhibitions unfurling at the museum every week.

Best New Guesthouse: After celebrating 17-years of granting critically-ill children’s wishes, the amazing NGO Tamanna opened Beit Tamanna, a dreamy guesthouse in the heart of Gemmayze. Aside from being an architectural delight, proceeds from the guesthouse are used to make more critically-ill children’s’ dreams come true.

Best fashion moment: Lebanese fashion designer George Hobeika dropped a breathtaking new collection for Spring 2024 with the theme Goddess of Love. Though Hobeika stunned crowds with the spectacular designs (as usual), what really stood out was how he turned the Baalbek ruins into a runway.

Best theatrical moment: The Lebanese rendition of Chicago The Musical took everyone’s breath away! The Arabic adaptation was so successful, new dates were continuously added—it really was, all that jazz (sorry).

Best Terrible Moments

Best Terrible Nation-wide Moment: That week when the country operated in two separate time zones. Remember that? That really happened this year!

Best Terrible Social Media Debacle: This one goes to the Lebanon-Egypt Twitter feud, fueled by…food! Back in July, a Twitter battle ensued after user @salmichka shared a photo of her Eid lunch filled with the Lebanese staple of la7me nayye. This drew a slew of quote tweets and comments predominantly from Egyptian Twitter and a subsequent Lebanese retaliation.

2023 was a(nother) challenging year for Lebanon, but we made it through. Hoping for more prosperity and security for our country and its people in 2024 and beyond.