Restaurant Layalina

Not sure what the other reviewers are smoking. Below average food at above average prices. I paid 50 CHF for a glass of wine and a mezze platter.

Excellent food. The Chef is a real lebanese and clearly know how to cook! Try the lebanese wines, they are amazing!

The area where I’m staying here in Geneva doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of food options, so I was pleased to see the excellent reviews for this Lebanese restaurant. My friend and I sat outside for dinner and, seeing the note in the menu that you needed a minimum of two mezze dishes, decided on three — hummus with meat, falafel, and fattoush (green salad with tomato, cucumber, mint, and pita). We weren’t starving, so I figured this would be appropriate. Alas, the poorly worded English should say «minimum of two per person» because we were informed we needed a fourth, so we got moutabal (eggplant and tahini).
I wish they would have let us get three, because we had more food than we could eat! The hummus/​meat and falafel were very good, the eggplant was unique and delicious, and the fattoush… man, the fattoush! So many flavors! The vinaigrette really blended the different pieces of the dish into an amazing whole — awesome!
Much like everything in Switzerland, it ain’t cheap. But it’s great food and totally worth it.

Situé pas loin du lac, à l’entrée de la rue de Lausanne, le Layalina vous accueille avec hospitalité. Un service vraiment agréable. On trouve sans surprise à la carte toutes les spécialités libanaises. Mais si vous êtes à plusieurs, optez pour un grand assortiment Mezzes. Vous né serez pas déçu et point besoin de plat principal tellement c’est copieux! Mais si vraiment vous avez encore faim et envie de viande, un Lahme Moutawame (agneau mariné et parfumée à l’ail et citron) vous ravira. Et pour conclure, quoi de mieux qu’un café libanais? :-)

Huge yummy Lebanese dishes made by a family-​run business. A rare gem.
Cosy inside: classy dark wood, tablecloths and burgundy carpet.
Good place to take your parents, inlaws or clients.
Professional staff.
Excellent price to portion ratio.
Try the Kafta (minced meat and herbs) or lemon chicken dishes that come with lots of side things.

The largest portions I’ve received at a Lebanese restaurant In Geneva. I could only eat about half of the main course after eating various mezze. Service was quick and attentive. They have a spacious terrace out front but the noise of speeding cars detracts from the experience.

The hot and cold mezze (small dishes for sharing) were all tasty, well prepared, and had high quality ingredients. Grilled meats were excellent.
Layalina is not an inexpensive restaurant, but unlike many I’ve been to in Geneva, you don’t leave feeling like the quality and preparation of the food was not as high as the price you paid for it. Overall, I’d highly recommend for very good, high quality, Lebanese food.

Encountered this gem on a trip to Geneva for work. Among the best and most authentic Lebanese joints I’ve ever encountered, and I grew up eating the stuff. Definitely patronize should you find yourself in Geneva — a rare treat for its giant portions, which is not common in that town.

I had been craving middle eastern food for weeks, so when we got the email that our office lunch was to be held at a Lebanese restaurant, my stomach jumped with joy. We ordered pretty much everything on the tapas menu, so it was a good opportunity to sample a little bit of everything. In fact, the corpious amount of food on the table may have actually detracted from my ability to enjoy and feel out each individual menu item.
To the best of my recollection (aided by the online menu), the offerings on our table included:
Two types of hommos
Moutabal (mashed eggplant)
Tabouleh (salad)
Warak Inab (vine leaves with rice, tomato and lemon)
Samke kazhebe (onion confit with spices and tomatoes)
Maghmour (grilled eggplants)
Kibbe
Arrayes a la viande (basically samosa with beef)
Arrayes a la fromage (samosa with cheese)
Pita
Pita stuffed with cheese
Pita stuffed with lamb
I may have left out a couple – In any case, an enormous amount of food. The portions were fairly generous, and each table of four had more than enough of each dish to try, with enough extra to go back for seconds or thirds for the dishes we particularly liked. At the end of the meal, we had two huge pans of food left over.
I don’t like soury and vinegary food, so the tabouleh and vie leaves were out for me. Otherwise, everything was very good. The kibbe (which is kind of like a huge falafel ball shaped like an american football) and the samosas were fairly heavy considering the amount and variety of food we had, but I would have enjoyed them on days when I had more stomach space. I particularly liked the samke kazhebe, which was spicy with just the right amount of sweet. The hummos was very smooth and creamy, and one of them tasted a lot like sour cream (I liked the traditional one, but the texture of the sour creamish one was amazingly smooth).
Again, the amount and variety of food made it a bit difficult to concentrate on each individual dish, but I thoroughly enjoyed my meal. It didn’t seem you could really go wrong with any dish, including the baklava and sesame/​pistachio cookies we had to top everything off.
I’m already looking forward to diving into the left overs we have stashed in our office fridge tomorrow!