In the three years since Mezza opened on Quinpool near Oxford Street, the restaurant has been featured three times in this poll, first as Best New Restaurant and followed twice by Best Middle Eastern restaurant. While authentic Lebanese ingredients are shipped in, owner Tony Nahas makes every effort to buy locally to ensure freshness. It's also a family-run operation, which has to increase quality across the board, not to mention authenticity to the recipes. Oh, and if you didn't know, a mezza is an appetizer, consisting of <0x201C>a large variety of nuts, pickles, cheese, and other foods, displayed in small dishes from which it is picked up with the fingers, according to discoverlebanon.com.

1st Runner-up Tarek's
2nd Runner-up Tarboosh