A railway station where the meal is the destination

AlUla's Hegra Station has been remodelled into a luxury bistro, Prima Classe, recalling the golden age of travel

- Pooja Naik

The desert sun blazes over a Martian-like expanse in north-west Saudi Arabia. Wind-sculpted sandstone and granite boulders—shaped over millions of years—stand like meditating yogis. I'm in Hegra, a Unesco World Heritage Site sprawled across a 1.6-hectare necropolis in AlUla. In the 1st century BCE, this was home to the Nabataeans, a civilisation from the southern Levant (modern-day Jordan) with Petra as its capital. Today, it's the new address of The Chedi Hegra, a luxury resort, which opened in September 2024.

Desert life and the ancient incense routes have long shaped food here. The Nabataeans ate grains, dates, figs, olives, nuts and dried meats, seasoned with regional herbs and spices. Many of these flavours endure—slow-cooked lamb or goat with rice and lentils, clay-oven baked bread, dates with Arabic coffee, and seasonal tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplants.

Staples like kabsa (spiced rice with meat), mutabbaq (stuffed pancake) and jareesh (cracked wheat with yogurt) still define AlUla's table.

At Prima Classe—an all-day, Mediterranean-inspired restaurant recalling the golden age of luxury train travel—this legacy takes a new form. At the restaurant, which occupies the disused Hegra Station, the scent of spiced meats and warm bread mingles with the faint metallic tang of rail tracks which run through it.

Built in 1907 as a link between Medina and Damascus to ferry pilgrims and goods, it fell silent after World War I and the Arab Revolt in the early 20th century.