Omani food is built on rice, meat, and spice — honest cooking, rich with the flavours of a trading history that connected the Arabian coast to East Africa, India, and Persia. The cuisine is less showy than Lebanese or Turkish food but deeply satisfying when it's done right.
Shuwa is the centrepiece dish for celebrations. A whole lamb is marinated in spices — usually dried limes, cardamom, cumin, cinnamon — wrapped in palm leaves, then slow-cooked in an underground pit for up to 48 hours. The meat falls apart. You're unlikely to encounter it in a restaurant; it's a feast-day food, served at weddings and Eid.
Majboos (also spelled machboos) is the everyday equivalent of the Saudi kabsa — long-grain rice cooked with chicken or meat and a fragrant blend of spices, served on a large communal platter. Good versions are deeply savoury and aromatic; mediocre versions are just rice with chicken. Most local restaurants serve it.
Harees is a slow-cooked porridge of wheat and meat, soft almost to the point of dissolution, spiced simply and eaten during Ramadan and celebrations. Comfort food in the fullest sense.
Seafood is excellent on the coast. Grilled or fried fish — king fish, hammour, tuna — at waterfront restaurants is often the best meal available in a coastal town. Paplou, a fish soup made with dried Omani lime (loomi), is worth seeking out.
Halwa, the Omani sweet, is a gelatinous confection made from sugar, rosewater, saffron, and various spices — dense, very sweet, and served in small pieces with coffee at formal occasions and available in sweet shops across the country.
Coffee (qahwa) in Oman is the cardamom-spiced Arabic style, pale yellow and slightly bitter, served in small handle-less cups and always accompanied by dates. Refusing it is a minor social offence; accepting it is the correct response to almost any hospitality.
In towns, Indian and Pakistani restaurants are widespread and cheap — a meal of rice, curry, and bread will cost 1–2 OMR. Better Omani food is harder to find in restaurants but increasingly available in Muscat. For local food at its most direct, the markets and small dhabas in inland towns are the best bet.