Restaurants

By Cyrus Shahrad

In Iran, when friends ask how dinner at a restaurant went, the polite response is: ‘Your place [at the table] was empty’. Not that there were many empty places on our weekend visit to Zeytoon, the mostly Iranian customers constantly rising from their chairs to snap pictures of the surrounding cultural clutter, all of it carefully orchestrated to strum the heartstrings of nostalgic post-Revolutionary exiles.

That’s as true of the elaborate framed tapestries and artful brick arches painted with traditional Persian scenes as it is of the cavernous tea counter, the latter sporting an enormous working samovar, shelves piled high with ornamental teapots and a bearded old timer seemingly plucked from Tehran’s central bazaar.

Smart, black-shirted waiters were affable and upbeat, and the dishes they carried steaming through the swing door of the rear kitchen were good enough to silence conversations that the decor had inspired in customers. A starter of smoky kashk-e bademjan (a creamy aubergine, garlic and whey dip) was the best we’ve tasted in London, pleasingly pungent and authentically topped with crispy fried onions; another of mast-o mousir (zingy shallot yoghurt) was perhaps overly puréed, but delicious when mopped up with soft, sesame seed-scattered bread hot from the clay oven.

Main courses straddle the Irano-Afghan border; we plumped for a heaped plate of the Afghan national dish, qabali polo – tender chunks of lamb buried beneath a mountain of brown rice colourfully flecked with raisins, shredded carrot and flaked almonds – and found it well cooked and bursting with intriguing contrasts of sweetness and spice.

An Iranian stew of khoresht-e qeimeh bademjan (lamb with split peas and fried aubergines) was authentically flavoured with dried limes but a little stingy on the meat – although for £5.50 including rice, it seemed a minor gripe.

All told, Zeytoon (which means ‘olive’ in Farsi) offers a more authentic and enjoyable Persian dining experience than its pricier west London peers. Don’t let your place remain empty much longer.

Time Out London Issue 2012: March 12-18 2009