This low-key bring-your-own-booze (BYOB) West London Iranian restaurant serves up authentic Persian food, and its simple joojeh (chicken) skewers are absolutely divine.
It’s a small, plain restaurant located in the middle of nowhere near Olympia’s Homebase, and from outside it doesn’t look particularly amazing, but it’s busy, bursting with lots of Iranian clientell looking for home-cooked, great food.
Portions are generous and it’s renowned for it’s delicious freshly-made flat breads – as you walk in you notice a very big bread oven perched in the restaurant.
Annoyingly, the bread is stale when it is 10 minutes out of the oven so a constant supply of large, thin, crisp breads smothered in sesame seeds becomes the part and parcel of the meal. When it’s hot and fresh out of the oven though, the bread is yum.
The restaurant serves more than just kebabs – it’s popular for its rice and lamb stew, as well as excellent grills and fresh mezze.
For starters an aubergine purée was very well enjoyed as well as a spinach stew. The cucumber yoghurt, sabzi and humous was great with the flatbreads too.
All of the food was crammed with herbs and this created a great combo of textures and tastes.
One observation was that almost every dish, if it was non-vegetarian, seemed to have lamb in it!
The chicken in the mixed grill was my personal favourite – simple skewers of surprisingly tender, succulent meat which almost melts in your mouth. The grill was served with a big mound of fresh rice and made you feel like what you were eating was good for you!
Don’t be put off by the idea that it’s a BYO – I was – having never been to a restaurant where you have to take your own alcohol – but it was a fantastic meal.
If you are going in a large group, you can request the large table they have sheltered by a marquee outdoors. It’s comfortable, and very warm due to big heaters, and makes your party that more special as you’re secluded from the rest of the diners.
Mohsen Kebab Iranian Restaurant, Warwick Road, Kensington: 152 Warwick Road, London, W14 8PS, 020 7602 9888
/// The Curious Londoner 