Chelo Koobideh
چلو کوبیده
Two skewers of minced lamb, saffron rice, grilled tomato.
£16.99
APADANA
تالار پذیرایی ایرانی در کنزینگتون
A Persian audience hall on Kensington High Street.
Book a tableOne of London's oldest Persian restaurants, serving Kensington since 1967.
Led in by the hand
دست در دست
On the staircases of the Apadana at Persepolis, twenty-three delegations climb toward the hall, each led by the hand by a Persian or Median usher, each carrying a gift from home. The copper guards on our walls are those ushers. The kitchen still carries things to the table.
The hall rises
- Built by Darius the Great and finished by his son Xerxes, the Apadana was the hall where the Persian empire received the world.
- Seventy-two columns, each rising more than sixty feet, carried a roof of cedar.
- Fourteen of those columns still stand at Persepolis today.
- In 1933, archaeologists found gold and silver tablets beneath the hall, naming a kingdom that ran from Sind to Lydia.
- Analysis of the stone has recovered its original colours: Egyptian blue, ochre red, mineral green and gold leaf. The palace was painted, not bare.
CHAPTER THREE · SCROLL TO PLATE THE DISH
از منقل
- Basmati rice, steamed and rested.
- A crown of saffron.
- Lamb chops, straight from the coals.
- A tomato from the fire, carrot and salad.
- Red cabbage, a pinch of sumac, and it is yours.
Mixed Kebab
کباب مخلوط
Saffron chicken, koobideh and wings to share, saffron rice.
for 2 · £45.99
Shishlik
شیشلیک
Lamb chops from the grill, saffron rice.
Persepolis, W8
Copper reliefs of the palace guards, the winged lions of the great hall, and the lamassu that stood at the Gate of All Nations: the room is built from the monument the restaurant is named after.
Fragments of Persepolis given by Sir Gore Ouseley in 1825 sit a few miles east, in the British Museum's Room 52.
A kitchen ledger, 2,500 years old
The clay tablets found at Persepolis record grain, wine, beer, sheep and bread, rationed daily to thousands of workers and travellers.
Open every day, 11 in the morning to 11 at night.
351 Kensington High Street, London W8 6NW.
020 7603 3696
Your place in the hall
جای شما در تالار