NAYA is a Lebanese spot where you build a bowl or a roll down a line: pick a base, pick a protein, then add whatever toppings you want. Order it well and it's one of the leanest lunches you can buy.
The rotisserie chicken is 120 calories for 25g of protein. Nothing else on the menu gives you more protein, and nothing but the cauliflower gives it to you for fewer calories. The vegetables you pile on top are close to free.
Order it badly and it's a different meal. Seasonal greens with rotisserie chicken is 150 calories and 27g of protein. The same chicken on vermicelli rice with hummus, feta and Greek dressing is 840, and all that extra food buys you 6g more protein.
So yes, it's healthy. The menu just won't do it for you.
Get the Rotisserie Chicken
At 120 calories for 25g of protein and 1g of fat, it gives you nearly twice the protein of the falafel for 180 fewer calories, and it is the leanest thing on the line.
| Protein | Calories | Protein |
|---|---|---|
| Rotisserie Chicken | 120 | 25g |
| Chicken Kebab | 150 | 20g |
| Chicken Shawarma | 200 | 23g |
| Braised Beef Shawarma | 180 | 13g |
| Kafta Lamb Kebab | 270 | 18g |
| Falafel (6 ea) | 300 | 13g |
| Cauliflower | 120 | 2g |
If the rotisserie isn't out, chicken kebab is 150 for 20g and chicken shawarma is 200 for 23g. Both are still good picks. The drop-off comes at the lamb. Kafta is 270 calories for 18g, so it costs more than double the rotisserie chicken and gives you less protein for the trouble.
Vegetarians get a thinner deal here and there's no point pretending otherwise. Six falafel is 300 calories with 13g of protein, 41g of carbohydrate and 20g of fat, which makes it the heaviest protein on the menu. The cauliflower is a vegetable, not a protein: 120 calories for 2g. Falafel is the better of the two, and the grains and dips are where the rest of a vegetarian order has to come from.
For the maximum-protein version of all this, see the highest protein NAYA bowl.
What to Order
Four bowls, lightest first. All of them are built down the line rather than ordered off the pre-made list.
Seasonal greens and rotisserie chicken, nothing else. 150 calories, 27g of protein. Spare, but it works if what you want is the protein.
Romaine, rotisserie chicken, tomatoes, cucumbers, sumac onions, lemon tahini. 235 calories, 28g of protein, 7g of fat. Order this one if you're eating light and still want a full bowl in front of you.
Tri-color quinoa, rotisserie chicken, the same vegetables, lemon tahini. 420 calories, 33g of protein. The quinoa brings 6g of protein of its own, which vermicelli rice doesn't.
Tri-color quinoa, chicken shawarma, hummus, feta, tomatoes and cucumbers. 635 calories, 36g of protein. A full meal with the dips in it.
On bases: romaine is 15 calories, seasonal greens 30, vermicelli rice 150 and quinoa 200. Quinoa costs 50 calories more than rice and gives you 6g of protein against rice's 3g, so if you're having a grain, make it that one.
If you would rather have a roll than a bowl, the bread is the whole cost of that decision. Whole wheat pita is 230 calories against 15 for romaine, so the same filling wrapped up runs about 215 calories more. That is a fair trade if a bowl never feels like a proper meal to you. Just take the whole wheat over the white.
The Topping Line
This is where a 235 calorie bowl turns into a 600 calorie one, and it only takes two or three decisions.
Most of the line is nearly free. Romaine, cucumbers, Lebanese pickles and pickled turnips are 5 calories each. Green bell pepper and tomatoes are 10, sumac onions 15. Seven toppings in total come in at 15 calories or less, and they are what makes the bowl feel like lunch instead of a diet. Be generous with them.
The dressings are the jump. Pomegranate vinaigrette and Greek dressing are 270 calories each, with 29g of fat. That is as much as the kafta lamb kebab, and more than any protein except the falafel. Lemon tahini does the same job for 70. Hummus as a topping is 150, tahini Caesar 140 and zesty jalapeño 110, which are all fine if you pick one of them rather than all three.
Feta is 70, kalamata olives 30, cucumber yogurt 35. Cheap ways to make the bowl taste like more than vegetables.
What to Skip
Most of the pre-built bowls and rolls. The Greek Salad is 570 calories with 49g of fat, which is a lot of fat for a salad. The Classic Chicken Bowl is 690, the Falafel and Tahini Roll 820 and the Classic Braised Beef Bowl 940. The Chicken Tahini Caesar Roll is 960 calories with 119g of carbohydrate, though it does carry 51g of protein, the most of anything on the menu.
The white pita. Whole wheat is 230 calories with 13g of protein and 40g of carbohydrate. White is 300 calories with 10g of protein and 60g of carbohydrate. White is a shade lower in fat, 2.5g against 4g, and loses on everything else.
The dips ordered as sides, unless you're sharing. A side is a tub for the table, the topping is a spoonful in your bowl, and the gap between them is bigger than most people expect:
| In your bowl | As a side | |
|---|---|---|
| Toum (garlic whip) | 80 | 1,130 |
| Hummus | 150 | 650 |
| Cabbage slaw | 60 | 390 |
| Cucumber yogurt | 35 | 230 |
| Baba ghannouj | 70 | 230 |
The toum side is 1,130 calories with 122g of fat, more than any single meal on the menu. It is whipped garlic and oil, so the number makes sense. Tabboule catches people out too: it reads like the light option and comes in at 280 calories with 25g of fat. Pita chips are 530.
Eating Light, Low Carb and Keto
The protein here is cheap and the vegetables really are close to free, so a 235 calorie bowl with 28g of protein will actually fill you up. Build around that and the rest is detail.
Low carb takes care of itself. Rotisserie chicken and chicken shawarma are 1g of carbohydrate each, chicken kebab and kafta 2g. Put one on romaine at 3g, add vegetables, finish with lemon tahini, and you have a keto-friendly bowl without doing anything clever. Skip the vermicelli rice at 26g, the quinoa at 31g, and both pitas at 40g and 60g.
One thing the calorie counts won't tell you: a menu built on shawarma, feta, olives and pickled vegetables isn't a low sodium one. If you're watching salt, go lighter on the pickles, the pickled turnips and the feta.
Ordering here on a GLP-1 medication is its own question, and there is a guide to the portion side of it.
Putting an Order Together
Same bowl, two ways. Chicken shawarma with hummus and feta, on vermicelli rice with Greek dressing, is 840 calories. The same thing on romaine with lemon tahini is 505. You get 33g of protein either way.
Two swaps, 335 calories, and not a bite less chicken.
Short version: rotisserie chicken on greens, every vegetable they'll give you, and one sauce that isn't a dressing.
Build your order with the NAYA nutrition calculator to total up whatever you actually order. If you are choosing between here and the obvious alternative, there is a direct comparison in NAYA vs CAVA.