The Middle East's smallest state offers some of the region's biggest flavours

A souk story: the taste of Bahrain’s capital city

Not even the all-pervading call to prayer stops the bread-wielding waiters outside Haji’s Cafe. In an unassuming alleyway in Manama’s centuries-old souk, Bahrainis from all walks of life go about their daily business as silver trays pinball between passersby and hungry customers, conveying steaming khubz — crisp flatbreads fresh out of the clay oven. A warm, yeasty haze wafts through the air as diners — from toddlers to the elderly — take the first meal of the day to the clatter of cutlery and shouted orders. This, it seems, is the place to be for breakfast, just as it has been for decades.

“We came here from another town just for the bread,” says Fatima, a regular. “It’s so fresh — you can’t get it like this anywhere else.”

She urges me to ask for the fresh cream — thick, made this very morning, and, to my dismay, nowhere on the menu. Insider tips are part of the charm at Haji’s Cafe’s, a local institution set near Bab al Bahrain, the historic entrance to Manama Souk at the ancient heart of Bahrain’s coastal capital. Run by third-generation owner Zuhair Haji, it’s been feeding hungry customers since 1950 — making it the oldest cafe in the country. Wherever you look, the walls are adorned with images of the country’s bygone era: from fishermen diving for pearls, once a mainstay of the island’s economy, to snapshots of local celebrities who’ve stopped to eat here. When Zuhair asks what I want for breakfast, I hesitate. “OK,” he says, with a gentle smile, “I’ll bring you a bit of everything.”

Fascinated with Middle Eastern cuisine, I’ve come to Bahrain to learn more about its food scene. The tiny kingdom — just 30 miles long and 10 wide — sits between Qatar and Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf. An archipelago of 33 islands, Bahrain has been inhabited for over 4,000 years, and its position between the East and West has long made it a crossroads for ancient trade routes; civilisations from Dilmun and Assyria to the Persians and Portuguese have left their mark.

Today, it’s home to a diverse population of 1.6 million — most concentrated in and around the capital, Manama on Bahrain Island — and nowhere is the country’s cultural mix more apparent than in its cuisine. ‘Traditional’ food here, I soon learn, is primarily a heady amalgamation of recipes — Indian, Iranian and Khaleeji (Arabic for ‘of the Gulf’). Flavours from India, which has a long-established diaspora here, can be tasted in the likes of butter chicken and tandoori grills. Iranian influences, carried over the narrow stretch of sea that the country shares with Bahrain, are evident in dishes such as tahchin, a saffron-infused rice cake. Then there’s food that’s unmistakably Bahraini — notably machboos, a spiced one-pot recipe of rice with meat or fish, regarded as the national dish.

But Bahrain isn’t bound by tradition alone. It’s the sort of place where you can dine at menu-less joints frequented by elderly men, then head north to Bahrain Bay for world-class sushi or a premium steak with glittering city views. There are plenty of options, but ask any local what defines Bahraini food, and they’ll tell you it’s meat, fish, rice and spices — especially saffron and cardamom — that reign supreme.

For Zuhair, his mission at Haji’s Café is straightforward: to serve Bahrainis from all walks of life, “from the poor to the ruling family” thus preserving his grandfather’s legacy. “He opened this place because it’s by the sea, so the tired fishermen and pearl divers could come to eat,” he says, settling into the bench next to me. “He started the menu with only eggs, and yoghurt he’d make using the cattle from his own farm.”

Zuhair then puts a generous spread before me: lamb with potatoes and parsley; fresh goat’s cheese, honey, yoghurt and homemade blackberry jam; fresh, tandoor-baked bread. It’s accompanied by karak, a comforting blend of black tea, milk, sugar and cardamom.

There are two things I’ve never tried before: mahyawa, a fermented fish sauce; and balaleet — vermicelli noodles spiced with cardamom and topped with a folded omelette. To my joy, a small bowl of the off-menu cream arrives, meant to be eaten with bread and a drizzle of honey. Made that morning using the traditional method of boiling milk, it is, as Fatima promised, wonderfully fresh and sweet. I then try the lamb, which falls apart before I even bite into it. The balaleet is at once sweet and savoury. I’m no pearl diver, but it feels wonderfully fuelling for the day ahead.

Even though it’s just shy of 9am, the cafe is humming with people eager to eat. When I ask Zuhair if he’d ever open more branches, it’s a firm no. “My father told me to never expand,” he says. “If you go to the mall or somewhere fancy, you won’t see the poor people, those who only come for a cup of tea and bread.” And he’s just as strict about freshness. “Once I run out, I run out,” he adds. “People get angry, but everything must be fresh at all times. I don’t put anything in the freezer.”

Positively stuffed, I bid farewell to Zuhair and wander Manama’s vibrant souk. It’s a dizzying labyrinth of small stores, mostly run by Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, selling perfumes, fruit, nuts and local produce like loomi, the tangy black lime at the heart of Bahraini cuisine. Dotted around are countless places to try the island’s culinary showstoppers: machboos, harees — wheat grain, slow-cooked with meat and ghee — and halwa, the country’s beloved jelly-like sweet made with sugar and either ghee or corn oil. Popular South Asian sweet shops, such as Manama Sweets, display specialities including ladoo, traditionally made by rolling balls of flour blended with sugar, jaggery or ghee, along with savoury treats such as dahi puri — fried orbs of potato and chickpeas laced with tangy green chutney.

Before I leave the souk, a tad lethargic from a breakfast big enough to feed a village, I duck into a narrow passage for a coffee at Amin Sulaiman. The tiny hole-in-the-wall venue, with handful of rickety tables outside, is one of the capital’s oldest coffeeshops. Its menu is simple: tea, coffee or a snack of boiled chickpeas. On one table, two men are locked in a fierce game of dominos. On the other, Hassan, a poet, pens words about the Bahrain of yesteryear.

Places like Haji’s and Amin’s are for everyone, he tells me. Amid the glittering skyscrapers and luxury yacht clubs, “Manama remains a humble place full of character and traditions. You just need to know where to look.”

The pioneer: Tala Bashmi

“The way the West perceives women here, is that there’s a lot we can’t or aren’t allowed to do,” says Tala Bashmi, a Bahraini professional footballer-turned-chef. “When in reality, it’s quite the opposite.” Tala played for Bahrain’s women’s national team for seven years, before an injury forced her to quit. Seeking inspiration from her childhood of fishing with her father, she went on to become the country’s best-known chef, credited with putting the island’s cuisine on the international map. Getting there wasn’t easy. In Europe, where she trained, kitchens were “overly macho”, spaces where she felt discriminated against for being “a woman, a Muslim, an Arab”, the 37-year-old tells me. Bahrain, by contrast, has a community of “amazing, determined female chefs”.

Tala meets me for a coffee on the terrace of GB (‘Green Bar’) Café, a bright bakery next to the Unesco-listed Bahrain Fort, just west of the capital. She tells me that she’s just concluded a decade-long tenure at her restaurant, Fusions by Tala, which saw her win the Estrella Damm N.A. Chefs’ Choice Award in 2025. The same year, her restaurant was ranked number six in the Middle East and North Africa by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. There, her menu paid homage to Bahraini staples such as jereesh (prawns, black lime and cracked wheat) reworked through contemporary techniques.

Tala’s food ethic is rooted firmly in Bahraini ingredients and flavours. “When most people say they’ve had Arabic food, they’re talking about the Levant,” she explains, one eye on the feral kittens weaving in between the table legs.

“But Khaleeji cuisine is unique, and Bahraini food even more so, shaped by all the people who have passed through here.” Some of her favourite ingredients to work with include looz, the sweet-yet-acidic Indian almond, and bambar, a fruit with a slimy texture and melon-like taste — both having featured in local cooking for thousands of years. As for her favourite meals, rice rules. “Rubyan fega’atah,” she exhales excitedly, noting the dish of shrimp cooked beneath a layer of rice, along with madruba, a black-lime-punchy dish of chicken with rice and baharat spice mix, mashed together with a wooden spoon until creamy: “all the good stuff.”

When I ask what’s next for the woman who’s already done so much for her motherland, Tala keeps tight-lipped but does say she’s determined to champion the flavours of Bahrain even more authentically. “We’re not a new country; our food is layered with centuries of history,” she says. “Food is something tangible you can depend on, and I want people to know exactly where they are when they taste mine.”

Coastal cuisine: a tale of two seas

In Harbour Heights, a palm-lined waterfront complex just north of the capital, I meet Roaya Saleh, the self-proclaimed ‘Mama of the Gulf’. Another of Bahrain’s pioneering female chefs, she has just opened Dawa, a sea-to-table tapas restaurant. “I grew up watching my father build wooden fishing vessels, and I travelled on them to Iran,” she says from behind the kitchen counter as she prepares my first plate. “He wasn’t just a captain, but also a carpenter, a fisherman and a cook.”

Dawa — the Arabic word for a traditional sailing dhow — isn’t Roaya’s first culinary venture. In 2012, after 20 years of working in finance, the mum of four opened Villa Mamas, Bahrain’s first farm-to-table fine-dining restaurant, which eventually branched out to London, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. It’s where she pays homage to both Bahraini dishes and those from her mother’s native Iran, like zereshk polo — saffron-infused rice with barberries and chicken. Her latest venture centres on the abundant local supply of seafood. Bahrain, literally meaning ‘two seas’, has waters rich in the likes of grouper and rabbitfish, which Roaya, a fierce advocate of fresh ingredients, sources from fish markets every week.

Overlooking the yacht-lined harbour, Dawa is every inch the cool hangout. In the corner, Roaya’s nephew is DJing, mixing house music with fjiri, a haunting genre once sung by pearl divers facing hardship at sea. I sit down on a velvet sofa and take it all in.

Roaya soon brings out wafer-thin regag flatbread with a side of tangy mahyawa. It’s the first in a convoy of small plates that includes balls of crab mixed with mascarpone and mozzarella, then covered in kadayif (shredded strands of filo pastry). The crab is sweet and crunchy with a slight briny undertone. “My job isn’t to change the foods of Bahrain,” she says, watching intently as I take my first bite, “but to make them smaller [tapas-sized] and elevate them.” Next is prawn jareesh salad, a take on a dish of ground wheat and meat traditionally eaten communally from a large tray at the centre of the table. Then comes an aubergine tempura, which is tart and creamy with feta cheese and cherry molasses, accompanied by swordfish with tahini and squid ink. A dish of cauliflower seasoned with tandoori spices and mint chutney hummus gives me a sneak preview of a menu addition.

“Bahraini food is still underrepresented around the world,” she says as we head to the bay-side terrace with earthy-green mugs of mint tea. “We need to educate people and invite them to our table.” She directs me to smell the pungent lemongrass growing just by the door. “Our food deserves to be seen.”

Best things to do in Bahrain

Tour the largest mosque in the country

Manama’s striking Al Fateh Grand Mosque can serve up to 7,000 worshippers. Outside of prayer hours, tours in English provide insight into Islamic culture and the stories behind the marvellous Italian marble floors and Austrian chandeliers.

Watch a basket weaver at work

Next to the Unesco-listed Bahrain Fort is the House of Basket Weaving, where Hassan Alshajjar — who has practised the craft for 35 years — works palm fronds into fruit bowls, lampshades and chicken cages. @basket_house2

Visit a 19th-Century Krishna Temple

Hidden behind red metal gates in Manama Souk, the resplendent 200-year-old Shrinathji Temple is the heart of Bahrain’s Hindu community. It hosts regular bhajan (religious devotional song) sessions and cultural events.

Top three food experiences

Budaiya Farmers’ Market

On Saturdays in the cooler season, a corner of Budaiya, in Bahrain’s north west, turns into a food hangout. Families spread picnic rugs, listening to distant oud music, while farmers, beekeepers and local artisans showcase their goods beneath towering palm trees. It’s ideal for picking up local specialities such as moringa-infused tahini or sidr — scented handmade soap — or grabbing a bite from a food stall. Try: gluten-free baklava at Dona’s Wonders.

Hopscotch Bakery & Cafe

“I wanted to share Bahraini flavours in a way that feels modern yet rooted, especially on a global stage that often isn’t familiar with Gulf food culture.” So says Dona Murad, who opened Hopscotch in the town of Saar in 2015. It’s a favoured spot for locals to linger over a coffee, with standout pastries including the labneh-and-za’atar twists and the mahwaya-and-black-sesame ‘escargots’.

Halwa in Muharraq

Muharraq, the former capital of Bahrain, is the place to go for halwa, a gelatinous sweet made with corn oil, ghee and sugar. It comes in two varieties: red, with saffron and cashews, and green, with almonds. You can try it at one of the many Showaiter family sweet shops around the souk. Halwa is so integral to local celebrations that arriving at a party without it is considered somewhat shameful. Showaiter and other shops also sell a huge selection of other local sweets, dates and sugary samosas. Burn everything off by walking Muharraq’s mural-laden streets, a milky, cardamom-infused karak tea in hand.

Where to go shopping

Souq Al Baraha

Bahrain’s newest shopping centre has been designed to recall a traditional souk, with palatial archways and shaded community spaces. Inside, expect fresh groceries, perfumeries and several local restaurants — and don’t miss the butter chicken at Al Kwar.

The Avenues

Malls are part of the Bahraini landscape, crucial for escaping the Gulf heat. This single-level strip stretches for a mile along glittering Bahrain Bay, and houses both local and international brands, as well as places to eat, drink and catch a film.

Amina Gallery

This part-shop, part-gallery is where self-taught artist Amina Al Abbasi creates contemporary handbags, abayas (long, loose-fitting garments) and household accessories inspired by traditional Bahraini designs and materials.