Words by Karolina Wiercigroch
Photographs by Karolina Wiercigroch
January 5, 2024

Oman, a land of frankincense and rose water, lush palmeries and ancient desert forts, is one of the Arab world’s most beguiling destinations. And with Omani cuisine drawing on Persian, Indian, and East African influences, it’s an oasis for food lovers as well.

Travelers can enjoy breathtaking views Birkat Al-Mawz village — The date oasis of Birkat al Mawz in the Hajar Mountains

Stepping through the heavy wooden door into a dining room softly illuminated by ornate brass lamps, I’m enveloped by a sweet muskiness. The air is redolent with the mystical fragrance that has been wafting around me ever since I landed at Muscat International Airport, where scent diffusers work round the clock to welcome visitors with the aroma of frankincense. The resin is burned in little clay braziers throughout the Omani capital, perfuming its houses and souks and restaurants. The one I just entered is no different—after all, it’s called Bait Al Luban, or “House of Frankincense.”

I’m greeted with a welcome drink of frankincense-infused water. It’s what I imagine holy water should taste like, with an earthy undertone and sacral finish. I can see how it may be an acquired taste—the waiter looks surprised when I ask for seconds—but I enjoy it so much that straight after lunch I stock up on nuggets of culinary-grade frankincense at the nearby Muttrah Souk. The milky-white resin is harvested from the gum of the Boswellia sacra trees that grow wild in southern Oman’s Dhofar governorate, a region famed for its 6,000-year-old frankincense trade. A few dollars buys me a small box of the stuff.

View of the city on the Muscat Mutrah Corniche directly bordering the sea, and authentic Omani coffee at Bait Al Luban — *Left to right:* A view of Muscat’s Muttrah Corniche; Omani Style Kahwa Coffee at Bait Al Luban.

Frankincense is such a quintessentially Omani ingredient that I’m surprised by how rarely it’s used in cooking. Frankincense water and other hot infusions have long been drunk here to promote digestion and healthy skin; some Omanis chew the edible resin like gum to sweeten the breath. But it took an American, Trygve Harris, to invent frankincense ice cream. Having moved to Dhofar more than a decade ago to source essential oils for her New York–based fragrance company Enfleurage, Harris began experimenting with infusing milk with frankincense oil, et voila: the idea caught on and today frankincense ice cream sticks are sold in supermarkets across the country. I taste an artisanal version at Ubhär, a creative Omani fusion restaurant inside Muscat’s Boulevard Boutique Mall. It’s served alongside a puff pastry filled with halwa, a chewy confection of sugar, ghee, cornstarch, and rosewater spiced with cardamom and saffron. Aptly called Ubhär’s Dream, the dessert perfectly encapsulates the essence of Omani sweets.

The process of making halwa and the tasty look of luqaimat (deep-fried dough balls) — *Left to right:* Making *halwa* in Nizwa; dates with a dessert of *luqaimat*.

Twenty years ago, finding an Omani restaurant in the Sultanate of Oman would have been tricky. Before the oil boom of the 1970s there wasn’t much of a restaurant culture here at all, and even after that, eating out was mostly limited to Western chains, Indian eateries, and street-food stalls doling out mishkak—spiced skewers of meat grilled over coals, typically served with warm pita bread and spoonfuls of a tangy tamarind sauce. Omani cuisine, with its subtle mélange of flavors and cooking styles that draws on Arab, Persian, Indian, and East African influences, was mostly enjoyed at home. So it’s not surprising that it slipped under everyone’s radar.

Thankfully, that is no longer the case. Besides Bait Al Luban and Ubhär, there’s Rozna, a restaurant set inside a mock Omani fortress bristling with scalloped ramparts and watchtowers. Served in a central courtyard bounded by arched colonnades, meals here revolve around such traditional dishes as shuwa—banana-leaf parcels of marinated lamb slow-cooked in a fire pit for anything from six hours to two days. Considered the country’s national dish, shuwa has been customarily reserved for community celebrations like Eid, when whole neighborhoods or villages gather over massive communal pits to bury everyone’s parcels together. Thanks to places like Rozna, which has several steel-lidded shuwa ovens sunk into an outdoor terrace, visitors can enjoy the succulent meat any time of the year.

Front look of classical building of dining courtyard at Rozna and delicious Omani breakfast with a view condiment in one plate — *Left to right:* The dining courtyard at Rozna; an Omani breakfast at the same restaurant.

Shuwa even gets the five-star treatment at Alila Jabal Akhdar, a spectacular cliff-side resort in the mountains southwest of Muscat. The surrounding Saiq Plateau, suspended some 2,000 meters above sea level, is home to villages that distill fragrant petals of damask rose into Oman’s most prized rose water. They also grow the juiciest pomegranates and apricots in the country. Some of that mountain produce finds its way onto the menu at the Alila’s Juniper restaurant, which, while international in flavor, does turn out a fine shuwa alongside other Omani specialties like paplou, a rich fish soup that gets its citrusy kick from loomi, or preserved sun-dried limes.

Back at Muscat’s Ubhär, Moroccan-born chef Kenza El Alami cooks her own version of paplou using whatever catches her eye at the harbor-side Muttrah Fish Market. Designed by Norwegian architecture studio Snøhetta, the airy new building is where most Muscat chefs shop for the fruits of the Arabian Sea, haggling with dishdasha-clad vendors over their glistening hauls of kingfish, bream, snapper, lobster, prawns, and hamour, a local favorite resembling sea bass that is grilled, simmered in sweet-scented curries, or dried in the sun to use in salads. But El Alami says her favorite creation is camel biryani. “Camel meat is very popular in Oman, especially in the south. It’s usually grilled, either as a skewer in mishkak or cut into thin strips and placed on sizzling stones. That’s called madhbi. But it’s hardly ever used in biryani, which is usually made with chicken or lamb.” Her take on the north Indian rice dish is absolutely delicious, the slow-cooked camel meat, soft and full of sweetness, perfectly complemented by a medley of spices. “Coming from Morocco, where we know our spices, I was still impressed by how Omanis use spices,” the chef tells me. “Everybody mixes their own masala at home.”

Moroccan-born chef Kenza El Alami who cooks her own version of paplou, a spicy and sour fish soup at Muscat’s Bait Al Luban restaurant. — *Left to right:* Chef Kenza El Alami at Ubhär; A spicy and sour fish soup called *paplou* at Muscat’s Bait Al Luban restaurant.

Imparting different notes from one household to another, the Omani spice mixture known as bezar is based around the warm spices once carried along the ancient trade routes from Asia: cloves, cardamom, anise, cinnamon, black pepper. No wonder Omani cuisine works well in modern fusion creations: it has been blending flavors and traditions for centuries. The Portuguese, who dominated the strategically positioned region around Muscat in the 1500s and early 1600s, established an enduring trade with India. The art of cooking with saffron and rose petals is of Persian origin, while the use of coconut, chilies, and cloves was inspired by the Zanzibaris, as were mishkak and mandazi—deep-fried doughnuts filled with shredded coconut and cardamom. At the peak of its power in the 19th century, the Omani Empire stretched to the Balochistan and Sindh provinces of present-day Pakistan and down the east coast of Africa. Later, the influx of workers from the Indian subcontinent introduced karak tea, chapati flatbread, fragrant curries, and biryanis.

Rice is a staple of Omani cookery, appearing in dishes like qabooli, which is prepared by boiling meat with spices to create a rich stock that is then used for cooking the grain. In the version served at Bait Al Luban, the fragrant rice is topped with succulent beef and served alongside a rich coconut and spinach curry. Before my hands are sprinkled with rose water to finish the meal, the waiter brings over a dallah (an embossed metal coffee pot with a beak-shaped spout) full of kahwa—lightly roasted coffee boiled with cardamom seeds and finished with a few drops of rose water. Like the aroma of frankincense, kahwa is everywhere in Oman: it’s the first thing I’m offered in restaurants, hotels, museums, and the sitting rooms of private houses. Even banks have flasks of the brew on hand, which makes queuing and form-filling more bearable. Kahwa is often served with a platter of soft, sweet dates and a bowl of tahini for dipping.

The aesthetic appearance of the old passageway in Nizwa Souk and one of Ubhär’s signature dishes. — *Left to right:* An old passageway in Nizwa Souk; A succulent camel biryani is one of Ubhär’s signature dishes.

The best dates come from Nizwa, an ancient city at the foot of the Hajar Mountains some 150 kilometers southwest of Muscat. The scorched, craggy terrain of this region is dotted with lush oases and mud-brick villages, many abandoned in favor of the modern housing implemented by the late Sultan Qaboos bin Said, who ruled Oman for almost 50 years until his death in 2020. In Birkat Al Mawz, one derelict house has been recently restored as an atmospheric guesthouse with a modern café. “It’s our grandfather’s home,” says Abdullah al Saqri, the founder of Bait Al Sabah, where cardamom-infused coffee and flat whites alike can be enjoyed on a rooftop terrace overlooking the ruins of the old village. “We want to maintain our family’s legacy. This house was built almost 200 years ago and that’s a long history we cannot waste. It teaches guests about the old Omani way of life.”

Nizwa, Oman’s onetime capital, was once a cradle of intellectual activity and a crucial hub on the caravan routes linking the interior with Muscat and Dhofar. Even today it’s still a busy market center, with a buzzing souk that overflows with local handicrafts—silverwork, woven baskets, clay pottery—and all manner of produce. There’s a separate area for halwa, as well as a date market filled with the sweet, shiny jewels. The oases around Nizwa grow over 40 different varieties of dates, from bright orange khalas to dark, slightly less sugary fard.

Historically, each part of the date palm was put to use: the fronds were made into baskets and mats, the fiber woven into ropes, and the stems used to fashion fish traps and chicken coops. Dates are eaten fresh, dried in the sun, or pressed into a molasses called dhibs, at times flavored with cardamom and black pepper. Inside the sand-colored walls of Nizwa Fort, I learn that boiling date syrup was once poured through holes in the parapet to deter attackers. Today, dhibs is kept to the kitchen. It’s drizzled over fluffy quroos pancakes or mixed into sweet muradhaf flatbreads or whipped with tamarind and black pepper into a sauce called tarsha, which often accompanies harees, a hearty porridge-like dish made of mashed wheat berries and meat.

Alila Jabal Akhdar provide a beautiful dining view of cliff side, and a spoiled treat for seafood lovers with hamour fish at Ubhär — *Left to right:* Cliff-side dining at Alila Jabal Akhdar; grilled *hamour* fish at Ubhär.

Tarsha is delicious—spicy, slightly tart, and pleasantly sweet. I try it at Muscat’s Dukanah Cafe, an all-day-breakfast affair near Qurum Beach. The breakfast platters here include a selection of curries with eggs, dango—a zesty dish of chickpeas cooked with spices, chilies, and lime juice—and fresh, thick cream drizzled with local acacia honey. Beekeeping has been booming here for the last few years, with free apiary training provided by the government as part of a scheme aimed at diversifying Oman’s economy.

Back home in London, I mix a spoonful of the fruity nectar into my frankincense tea and inhale the aroma. A lump of white resin in a burner on my kitchen table sends up a wisp of fragrant smoke. Six thousand years on, the frankincense trade is still holding strong.

An Appetite for Oman

GETTING THERE

Most flights to Muscat from Southeast Asia will be via Dubai or Abu Dhabi, though Oman Air does operate flights from Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur.

WHERE TO STAY

The Chedi Muscat
This low-rise, calm-inducing property comes with the region’s longest swimming pool, a vast spa, and a private beach (from US$590 a night).

Alila Jabal Akhdar
A cliff-top refuge in the mountains above Nizwa, with a lovely restaurant, Juniper, that mixes Arabic and global dishes (from US$650 a night).

WHERE TO EAT

Bait Al Luban
Across from Muttrah’s fish market, the “House of Frankincense” is a longtime favorite for real-deal Omani cuisine.

Dukanah Cafe
An all-day-breakfast spot near the Muscat waterfront, Dukanah is popular for its harees porridge.

Rozna
This cavernous place in the Muscat suburb of Mawaleh impresses with both its food and its fortress-like setting.

Ubhär
Chef Kenza El Alami’s camel biryani is a must-try.

Pakora of fresh Omani vegetables served with a coconut and mint chutney at Bait Al Luban and old woman selling flatbread vendor inside Nizwa Fort — *Left to right:* Pakora of fresh Omani vegetables served with a coconut-and-mint chutney at Bait Al Luban; a flatbread vendor inside Nizwa Fort.

This article originally appeared in the October/November 2023 print issue of DestinAsian Magazine (“A Sultanate to Savor”).

A Deep Dive into Omani Cuisine