A Beirut Concept Built Entirely Around Kibbe
Kibbe Kitchen is a fast-casual food concept based in Gemmayzeh, Beirut, dedicated to a single Lebanese dish: Kibbe. It is the first fast-casual operator in the world focused entirely on one of Lebanon's most recognizable foods. The menu sits behind a new format the team calls Kibbe2.0, an open-faced version of the dish designed to be customized, ordered quickly, and built into different meal occasions.
The Question That Started Kibbe2.0
Kibbe Kitchen was founded by three Lebanese entrepreneurs: Karim, Rabih, and Ralph Khairallah. Their backgrounds sit across restaurants, tech startups, and innovation, and the project started from a question they kept coming back to. Why is Kibbe, one of Lebanon's most versatile dishes, still mostly limited to traditional formats and special occasions?
Their answer was the open-faced Kibbe model. By flattening the Kibbe shell and treating it as a base, the founders made the dish easier to eat, easier to share, easier to customize, and easier to scale, without changing what they describe as its Lebanese soul.
How Kibbe2.0 Works on the Menu
The Kibbe Kitchen menu is structured around five open-faced Kibbe bases: Meat, Fish, Pumpkin, Lentil, and Beetroot. Each base can be topped with a range of Lebanese and international fillings. The same building blocks show up in different formats across the operation, from Kibbe Boats and Kibbe Minis to Kibbe Waffles, catering platters, and frozen retail products.
The setup is built to move between channels. A single Kibbe2.0 base can be ordered in-store, sent out for delivery, plated at a catering event, or sold as a frozen product on a retail shelf.
60,000 Kibbe Pieces and Counting
Kibbe Kitchen runs from a central kitchen in Beirut with a branch in Gemmayzeh. Since launching, the team has served more than 60,000 Kibbe pieces, introducing the Kibbe2.0 concept to customers one order at a time. The five Kibbe bases form the spine of every format the brand operates, whether dine-in, delivery, catering, events, frozen retail, or B2B.
Where Kibbe Kitchen Goes Next
For now, the team is testing, refining, and developing the model in Lebanon. The ambition goes further: build the open-faced Kibbe category at home, then move it into regional and international markets. The founders describe their mission as making Kibbe more accessible to everyone, everywhere, and using the dish as what they call a modern food vessel for the flavors, colors, and sharing spirit of Lebanese and Mediterranean mezza culture.
"We created Kibbe2.0 to make Kibbe more accessible to everyone, everywhere. By turning it into a modern open-faced food vessel, we can carry the flavors, colors, and sharing spirit of Lebanese and Mediterranean mezza culture to the world," said Ralph Khairallah, co-founder of Kibbe Kitchen.
Explore the full Kibbe2.0 menu at Kibbe Kitchen.
Kibbe Kitchen
