Where to eat in Wadi Musa.

What to order

• Mansaf: Jordan’s national dish. Lamb cooked in jameed, a sauce of dried fermented yoghurt, served on rice with almonds and pine nuts. Eaten at celebrations, and worth ordering once.
• Maqluba: “upside down”. Rice, vegetables and chicken or lamb cooked in a pot and turned out onto the plate.
• Zarb: the Bedouin barbecue, meat and vegetables cooked in a pit in the sand. Some places in Wadi Musa make it for groups; ask a day ahead.
• Mezze: hummus, mutabbal, tabbouleh, fattoush, labneh with olive oil, and warm bread.
• Falafel and shawarma: the quick lunch of the whole country.
• Kunafa: warm cheese pastry soaked in syrup. The sweet everyone remembers.
• Sage tea: sweet black tea with dried sage, served everywhere inside Petra.

Inside Petra

Along the main trail and up to the Monastery there are Bedouin tea stalls selling tea, water, soft drinks and snacks. Near Qasr al-Bint, in the city centre, there is a restaurant with a buffet lunch, the one proper meal inside the site. Many visitors carry a packed lunch instead; reception will prepare one if you ask the evening before.

On Tourism Street

The street that runs from the town down to the Visitor Centre is lined with restaurants, cafés and juice bars aimed at visitors, most with menus in English. It is where you eat after Petra, within walking distance of the gate and the hotel. The Cave Bar at the Petra Guest House, by the gate, is set in an old Nabataean tomb and is the best-known drink in town.

In the town centre

Ten minutes up the hill, the centre of Wadi Musa around the main roundabout is where the town itself eats: falafel and shawarma stands, rotisserie chicken, bakeries with za’atar bread and sweet shops with kunafa. It is cheaper and busier, and open late.

Cook it yourself

Petra Kitchen, on Tourism Street, runs an evening cooking class where you make a Jordanian dinner with local cooks and then eat it.

In the cave at Edom

Our own restaurant is carved into the sandstone under the hotel: rugs, lanterns and a Jordanian buffet with mansaf, grills, mezze and sweets. It is a minute from the Petra gate and open to outside guests and groups when there is room. See the cave restaurant.

Good to know

• Most restaurants add a service charge; tipping beyond it is welcome but not expected.
• During Ramadan, many places open only after sunset. Hotel restaurants serve guests throughout the day.
• Tap water is not for drinking; buy bottled water or refill from filtered sources.