The electronic structure of the honeycomb lattice iridates Na 2IrO3 and Li2IrO3 has been investigated using resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS). Crystal-field-split d-d excitations are resolved in the high-resolution RIXS spectra. In particular, the splitting due to noncubic crystal fields, derived from the splitting of jeff=3/2 states, is much smaller than the typical spin-orbit energy scale in iridates, validating the applicability of jeff physics in A2IrO3. We also find excitonic enhancement of the particle-hole excitation gap around 0.4 eV, indicating that the nearest-neighbor Coulomb interaction could be large. These findings suggest that both Na2IrO3 and Li2IrO3 can be described as spin-orbit Mott insulators, similar to the square lattice iridate Sr2IrO4. © 2013 American Physical Society.