The Best Persian Food in the United States

Nasim Alikhani spent decades as a home cook in the Iranian diaspora before opening this Persian restaurant in Park Slope at 58, which explains why the food feels like someone's mother finally decided to show the city what she'd been holding back. Whitewashed brick, marble bar, black wood beams. The kitchen is faithful to Persian tradition but loose enough to foam a yogurt or call a pomegranate-marinated rib-eye a kebab. A James Beard nominee for Best Chef New York State.

The rice alone explains why the New York Times put this upscale Persian restaurant on its 2024 restaurant list: the tadig comes out with a shattering crust, and the fluffy sour-cherry version beside it is its own argument. Classic stews anchor the menu, with duck fessenjoon and beef with dried lime doing the heavy lifting. The room is relaxed enough for families, polished enough for a proper date.

The name means "heart, captured" in Persian, which sets the tone before you've even sat down. This sceney Inman Village restaurant is built around sharing, with spreads and house bread to start, a dedicated section of tahdig on the menu, and slow-cooked meats for the table. The crowd arrives dressed to be seen, but the food is the kind that makes people stop talking mid-sentence. A Michelin Guide selection.

The barbari bread is baked fresh each morning, which tells you something about how seriously this casual Silver Lake cafe takes Iranian cooking. Azizam runs on the kind of labor-intensive prep that doesn't announce itself, from herb-packed sandwiches to the kofteh Tabrizi, a single family-size meatball in tangy broth. Named to the New York Times Restaurant List and the L.A. Times 101 Best, it landed on Bon Appétit's Best New Restaurants list, too.

The tandoor oven visible through the display kitchen sets the tone: this is a full-scale Persian restaurant with a dining room grand enough that you wonder if you underdressed. High-backed banquettes, earthy colors, and an inviting bar soften the scale considerably. The menu runs classic, from lamb shank braised in tomato stew to baklava, with a rosewater-and-pistachio ice cream sandwich for anyone who wants to go slightly sideways at dessert.

Persian restaurant on the Upper East Side with linen-draped tables, wide banquettes, and windows onto Second Avenue that make it feel like dressing up is optional but encouraged. The kitchen leans into fragrant, slow-cooked territory: silky spreads, saffron-tinged kebabs over sour cherry rice, and spiced stews that smell like someone's grandmother is running things. Service is warm, occasionally to a fault.

Persian cooking is rare in San Francisco, and Lavash has been one of the city's few serious addresses for it. The kebab plates arrive piled over rice on wide sheets of flatbread, which is both a practical move and a slightly theatrical one. The tahdig, all crackle and crust, is the thing regulars come back for. Tables spill into a roofed parklet when the Sunset fog cooperates, which is optimistic but charming.

Kasra Persian Grill is a sit-down Persian restaurant that has been feeding Houston for ages, and it does so over a charcoal grill that leaves the kabobs properly blackened at the edges. Skewers of koobideh and chicken arrive next to heaps of basmati, with the dill and fava bean rice available as an upgrade you will be glad you made. Order the eggplant dip first, since it's where the evening starts to make sense.

The kebabs come off a grill tucked inside a Persian grocery store in Longwood, which tells you most of what you need to know about the prices. Beef koobideh and chicken skewers arrive with saffron rice, and you can ask for barberries, grilled peppers, and lavash to round it out properly. The shallot-yogurt dip from the refrigerated case handles any leftover bread. Bastani and faloodeh close things out the right way.

This is a neighborhood Iranian wine bar in Bernal Heights where the big round tables were clearly built for spreading out. Parents graze through mazze platters with a glass of something cold while kids tally the decorative pots behind the bar, and nobody needs a sitter or a reservation strategy. The sweet and sour chicken stew is soft enough for the teething set, which is more than most wine bars can say.

Dim enough to feel genuinely clandestine, with tall dripping candles and banquettes you sink into and forget to leave, this Iranian restaurant in the Arts District is the LA outpost of a London original. The menu leans into the Iranian diaspora, with kebabs doing the heavy lifting. It sits inside Soho Warehouse, so the corner booth may or may not contain a movie star, which is either a draw or a reason to keep your eyes on the bread.

Duck fesenjoon with pomegranate and walnuts is the kind of dish that makes you wonder why Persian food doesn't get more attention in this city. Rumi's Kitchen is a full-service Persian restaurant that started in Atlanta and has landed at Westfield Century City, bringing herb-heavy stews, saffron-marinated kebabs, and a menu that reads like a very convincing argument for going somewhere other than the food court upstairs.

Nasim Alikhani's minimalist Persian cafe on Flatbush is the kind of place you visit for one thing and leave thinking about it for weeks. That thing is the latifeh, a traditional confection the New York Times flagged as one of 2024's top New York dishes: two rounds of soft, rose-scented cream sandwiched between pastry and rolled in salted pistachios. Made fresh constantly so they never turn soggy, each one disappears faster than you planned.