Amman has one of the best eating scenes in the Arab world. The traditional Jordanian table revolves around mezze — hummus, baba ghanoush, fattoush, kibbeh — followed by grilled meats, mansaf (the national dish: lamb slow-cooked in fermented dried yoghurt and served on a bed of rice), and maqluba (upside-down rice and meat). The downtown area concentrates the cheap and traditional options; Jabal Amman, Luweibdeh, and west Amman have the more ambitious restaurants.
Amman also has strong Palestinian, Iraqi, and Syrian cooking traditions brought by successive waves of refugees and migrants. The variety of Arab cuisines available in a single city is unusual.