Six of the best places in London for dining with a group, by Jonathan Nunn, Romano Pizzichini, Ethan Joseph, Minreet Kaur, Christian Theodorou and Joel Hart.
Hello and welcome back to Vittles Restaurants. Earlier this we announced Issue 2 of our print magazine on the theme of Bad Food. The issue features more than 150 pages of all-new features, interviews, essays and restaurant content, including a round table with critics Helen Rosner, Pete Wells, Chitra Ramaswamy and Jonathan Nunn on bad restaurants and bad reviews, and an interview with Andy Hayler on whether Michelin makes restaurants worse. You can read more about the contributors and content here. If you pre-order the magazine before 1 December, you will receive it for a discounted price, with an extra discount for paid subscribers. Pre-order now!
Today, it’s time for another special edition of Six of One — in this issue you’ll find London restaurant recommendations for celebration meals from Ealing to Islington and Cockfosters to Tooting. With the writing from three Vittles first-time contributors, there’s koobideh (for kids), Hunanese pork liver and pak choi (for all ages), chapli kebabs (for your mates), chilli paneer (for your mum), sheftalia, jeyuk bokkeum, and much more for anyone you know who loves sharing food.
Bottoms up.
1. Persian Palace
The grill at Persian Palace. Photo: Persian Palace.
In London, access to the best Iranian cooking is gatekept. Not in the traditional food media sense, but because so much of it happens inside people’s homes. Having been together with an Iranian for more than a decade now, I’ve come to understand that taarof (basically, the expectation of going beyond expectations) has a good deal to do with it, like it does in so many aspects of Iranian culture. Properly making koresh or dips like kashke bademjan is time-consuming. Tahdig needs to be made fresh for each serving. And when you factor saffron ratios into the equation, taarof can be measured by the gram.
But if stews and tahdig are best eaten in living rooms, there is one section of Iranian cooking that should only be eaten in restaurants – chelow kabab. And nowhere does it better than Persian Palace in Ealing. For those wanting a familial environment, you’ll get it there, too. You’ll find plenty of large tables here, as well as a welcoming reception. And taarof definitely comes into play – £17.50 will get you two footlong kababs (the minced lamb koobideh is my family’s go-to) on a bed of saffron rice. A gigantic portion somehow still manages to be incredibly delicate and light – to the point that even my four-year-old can knock back a whole portion. But it’s not just quantity: the koobideh, kneaded with grated onion, arrives perfectly grilled, retaining more than a note of the charcoal.
Make sure to ask for extra butter for your rice and order doogh to wash down the kebabs. Starting with sabzi o panir, a refreshing platter of whole herbs, walnuts, radishes and feta cheese, is essential. We don’t usually order the dips or stews, but then again, we have them at home. Romano Pizzichini
143-145 Uxbridge Rd, W13 9AU
Behind the paywall: Jonathan Nunn goes back to an old Tooting favourite, Ethan Joseph remembers childhood birthday meals in Islington, Minreet Kaur enjoys a poignant meal with her mother at an institution reborn, and more recommendations.
You can subscribe to Vittles for £7/month or £59 for the whole year, which gives you access to restaurant recommendations from the last five years, including the Six of One map.
