Tehran Restaurants

If you visit tehran you will probably go to darband. There are many restaurants to choose from in darband. I have tried a lot of them and I think the Koohpaye Restaurant has the best food. The Staff and the service are also very good. But one problem is if you go on thursday night or friday the restaurant is probably full. if so you can go to behesht restaurant which is just opposite Kohpaye and that restaurant also has fine food.

Favorite Dish: This restaurant has all kind of kebab and fish and etc. I've tried Jooje kebab and bakhtiary and both of them were very delicious. YUmmmm.

Located on the ground floor of the Ferdossi grand Hotel, there's a cosy little saloon that serves as a traditional restaurant... nicely decorated and with a lovely fountain right at its entrance.

Favorite Dish: We did not have any meals there - though the menu looked interesting. The restaurant was quite empty, as we were there during norooz, where hardly anyone stays in Tehran. We onlt had tea and a sweet, and we were really happy with it.

On our last day in Tehran we wanted to have a memorable lunch and went looking for a nice restaurant near Valiasr avenue, in the side-streets... we ended up finding none, though there were plenty, as we discovered later. Basically we were looking in the wrong area of Valiasr avenue. Anyway, since we were getting nowhere, we decided to head to the 5 star Homa hotel and have lunch at its restaurant.

Favorite Dish: The menu looked very promising and for the first time in our trip we saw that we could have caviar and spinach - not necesarily together. They had run out of both. We tried ordering some other food, they had run out of almost everything... At the end I settled for a sturgeon kebab, which was very good, and a simple tomato salad, which proved to be a hard task to get. First I got a green salad, and then when I told the waiter that I had ordered a tomato salad, he came back with a plate of chips, which left me speechless. Not quite a 5 stars service, I guess.

For our last meal we wanted something simple... a grilled chicken. We wandered around our hotel until we reached Ferdosi square, where there are some sort of fast food selling grilled chicken, burgers and pizzas. All places seemed clean enough and inviting. We picked Goghrous because if had a free table.

Favorite Dish: As the grilled chicken was not yet ready, we had a pizza tp share while we were waiting for it to be done. To our amazament the pizza was quite ok, especially for a fast-food pizza. Above all it was topped with real tomato sauce and no ketchup. We also had the grilled chicken and some salad, which were good, too - though maybe not memorable.

Near Issatiss Mall, in Valiasr avenue in Northern Tehran, right opposite Park-e-mellat, it's full of road-side vendors selling colourful ice-creams and fresh pomegranade juices, as well as other juices/shakes.

Favorite Dish: I found my pomegranage juice jsut perfect, and my friends had banana milkshakes that had just everything in them, nuts, fresh fruits, jelly, chocolate... however I was more fascinated by the size of the ice-creams, which no of us had - we were wondering how to eat them without spilling them on our clothes. We only took pictures, and noted that each local that bought one, had it falling on his shirt 30 seconds later...

Actually not only in Tehran, but also in big cities like Esfahan and Shiraz there are thousands of restaurants in different categories: from cheap to very expensive ones, street-side to big luxury ones, hotels restaurants; and so many immunerable fast food shops of course! But most of restaurants serve Iranian foods, like many types of stews and rice; different kinds of beaf and chicken kebabs, and more traditional foods is some places.

Talking about international cuisines ... at least in Tehran there are a few of restaurants where serve them, but all of them are in expensive luxury category. And obviously it's relatively; by expensive I mean something $10 to $20 for a meal per person.

I can list some of those in Tehran:
- Hatam Buffet restaurant, located in Vali-Asr Ave. close to Zafar int. (almost northern Tehran)
- Narenjestan restaurant, located in Sarve Sharghi Blvd. in Saadat Abad region (northwestern Tehran)
- Tamasha restaurant, located in Milade Noor shopping center in Shahrak Gharb region (northwestern Tehran)
- Haft Sur restaurant, located in Mirzaye Shirazi St. (almost northern central Tehran)

In the other hand there are some Japanese, Arabic, Inidan, etc. restaurants in Tehran which I will try to gather their info and post them here.

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What makes Yas Restaurant special is: it's neat and clean, tastefully decorated, warm and friendly staff, Good sound of Jazz played at background, and the actual food is amazing,
Although they can provide 300 sits, place is still warm and intimate.
Rice tasted and looked wonderful, and you should know no other nation can cook rice as Iranian do. Grilled kebabs were wonderfully juicy but thoroughly cooked. I had Chelo(means rice in persian) Kebab Sultani which comes with tender fillet of Lamb accompanied with skewer of minced lamb on the bed of saffron rice, grilled tomatoes crowned with small chunk of butter.
I spoke to the owner of the Yas restaurant Mr. A.Nasserian who was very kind and friendly and I was told that they were in chelo kebab business for almost 150 years and he was the 5th generation, and that makes them the oldest Chelo Kebab restaurant in Tehran.
If you traveling to Tehran, Don't forget to check them out!

Favorite Dish: Grilled kebabs were wonderfully juicy but thoroughly cooked. I had Chelo(means rice in Persian) Kebab Sultani which comes with tender fillet of Lamb accompanied with skewer of minced lamb on the bed of safrron rice and grilled tomatoes crowned with small chunk of butter.
as I was going through their menu I noticed that they had few steaks and Caspian sea white fish which I tried next day of my visit to Yas Restaurant and it was wonderfully tasty served with dill weed & broad bean rice Like I never had before.

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When we came out of Golestan Palace, we were looking for something to eat, but there was nowhere obvious. I was so sure that somewhere as tourist-orientated as Golestan Palace is, that it would be surrounded by souvenir shops and eateries. But, no.

The problem of course, is that most restaurants and shops have signs only in Farsi script, so you really need to check each store close up to see what they sell.

We bought a couple of freshly squeezed fruit juices from a street vendor, and as we were drinking those, I looked down a side street, and noticed a doorway with a plant outside. Putting two and two together, I assumed this to be a restaurant and sent David to investigate. It was indeed a small eatery and we went inside.

The menus were all in Farsi script and no-one spoke any English. With the help of my phrase book, sign language and a lot of laughter, including the waitress bringing out plates of various ingredients to show us what she meant, we finally placed an order. I hoped I’d ordered one chicken and one lamb, and was very pleased when that was exactly what arrived!

Favorite Dish: The chicken came served with a sour sauce and a side dish of rice with barberries and the crispy crust I like so much. David’s lamb shank was delicious too and we had a yogurt each, the obligatory bread plus two local colas. The whole bill came to 70,000 IRR (just over $7). The food was tasty, the meat was lean, the portions were large, the place was clean, the waitress was friendly and we had a lot of fun trying to communicate. What more could you want from a meal, especially at those prices!