No restaurant, no kitchen service, no bar, no breakfast tray. That is deliberate, and it is why this page exists. Everything on it is ten minutes down the hill in the village. None of it is ours, and none of it is the full list: these are suggestions, not a directory. If you would rather cook, there is open ground to grill on and you are welcome to bring your own barbecue.
The village has a working souk, bakeries and a butcher, and it has been feeding this mountain far longer than there have been guests on it. There are more places down there than the three below.
These three are suggestions, not a list of the village. They are simply where we send people. None of them are ours, we have no arrangement with any of them and we take nothing from them. Walk the souk and pick your own; you will find tables we have not named.
Snack
In the village
A Lebanese snack is a counter, a grill and a stack of bread, not a machine in a corridor. Sandwiches wrapped in paper, eaten standing up or carried back up the hill in a bag that goes translucent on the way.
This is the first night, when the drive ran long and nobody has the patience to sit down for two hours. It is also the walk-back lunch.
Coffee house
In the village
Ahwe means coffee, and in a Lebanese village the ahwe is the room the whole place passes through at some point in the day. Small cups, sweet unless you say otherwise, and no expectation whatsoever that you will leave.
Go in the morning before the souk fills, sit outside, and take a book you have no intention of finishing.
Seafood and Lebanese mezze
In the village
A family kitchen in the middle of Douma: fish, and a long run of mezze set out around it. Tables go out among the olive trees with the mountains behind them, and there are stone-walled rooms inside for when the weather turns. Father and son cook; somebody in the family is always hosting.
This is the sit-down meal of the trip, and it deserves the whole evening rather than a slot. Two hours minimum. Call ahead on a summer weekend, because it is popular and it is not a small room.
Douma is a wine village, and not by accident. This part is documented rather than local legend.
Merwah is one of Lebanon's two indigenous white grapes. Above Douma it grows on terraced pergolas at over 1,500 metres, on vines more than sixty years old, dry-farmed and picked by hand. When Château Ksara released Lebanon's first single-varietal Merwah, from the 2017 vintage, the fruit came from here.
So if you drink one Lebanese white while you are on this mountain, that is the one to ask for by name. Two places to do it, both of them in the village, and we are not going to pick between them for you.
Wine and tasting
Douma
Grapes grown and wine made in Douma itself, which is the short version of everything above. Ask for the tasting rather than a bottle to take away: the interesting part is what altitude and a sixty-year-old vine do to a white grape, and that is a conversation, not a back label.
This is a village operation and not a visitor centre, so ask us before you walk down: who is pouring, and whether they are open the week you are here.
Wine and tasting
Douma
The other name to ask for in the village. We list it beside the first rather than choosing between them, because we have no arrangement with either and no reason to send you to one gate over the other.
Which one you end up drinking at is a question of who is open and who is pouring the week you are here, and that changes with the season. Ask us and we will tell you what we know, including what the name on the gate currently says.
Three stone houses, a terrace, a fire pit and a mountain. That is the whole list. Everything below is genuinely absent rather than absent for now, so that nothing on this site can be read as a promise.
And the places on this page are not ours either. We have no ownership, arrangement or commission with any of them. We do not book on your behalf, and we cannot stand behind their prices, opening hours, availability, allergen handling or anything else about a business we do not run. Hours in a mountain village move with the season and with the weather, so call before you drive down. The full wording is in the terms.
No. There is no restaurant, no kitchen service, no bar, no breakfast and no dinner. La Grande has a private kitchen you cook in yourself; the other two houses do not. Everything else is in the village, ten minutes down.
No, and there is no plan for either. No sauna, no hammam, no spa, no gym. There is a terrace, a stone fire pit and a mountain.
No. We will tell you who is worth the drive and roughly how long it takes. The call is yours to make. None of the places we recommend are ours and we take nothing from them.
The Douma souk is ten minutes down and has bakeries and a butcher, and the village shops cover the basics. Bring anything specific with you, because a mountain village stocks what a mountain village eats.
Yes. There is open outdoor space for grilling and you are welcome to bring your own barbecue, gas or charcoal. We do not supply one, or coals, or anything to cook. Indoors, La Grande has a full kitchen; La Grotta and Gemelli have none. The bonfire in the stone pit stays ours to light.
Yes. The renovation made the property step-free: the roads, the ground between the houses, the terrace and the parking are paved, with no cut rock, gravel or steps. Tell us before you book if you are bringing a wheelchair or a pushchair and we will confirm anything specific to your house.
Tell us your dates and we will tell you what is open the week you are here.