SA Weekend restaurant review: Naaz on Pulteney Street

The owners of family-friendly city eatery Naaz are helping to unpick the threads of the ornate tapestry that is Persian cooking, writes Simon Wilkinson.

Olives with pomegranate dressing at Naaz Persian Cuisine.

Think of northern Iran and, other than history scholars or the most intrepid travellers, few would be familiar with the ancient trading gateway of Rasht on the coast of the Caspian Sea. Nor do many people know of the nearby mountain village of Masouleh, where the winter snow can be tens of metres deep.

Omid and Mali Moghaddami are hoping to close this gap with their city restaurant Naaz.

Its rear wall is plastered with a floor-to-ceiling mural of honey-coloured homes clinging to the steep slopes of Masouleh, where Omid’s grandparents live.

And Mali’s cooking unpicks a few of the threads from the intricate tapestry of Persian and other influences that has seen Rasht named a “Creative City of Gastronomy”.

Naaz opened early in 2019 in a former dance studio on the eastern side of Pulteney St and it’s easy to imagine lithe bodies leaping across the wooden floors of the restaurant’s two expansive levels.

A selection of Persian delights from Naaz restaurant.

Tables and upholstered chairs are positioned well apart across both sections, with displays of colourful lamps, brass urns and bowls of pomegranates helping to set the scene.

Like many of Adelaide’s best ethnic restaurants, Naaz is all about family. The name itself is a shortening of Niknaz, the owners’ three-year-old daughter. Her mother is a constant presence, splitting her time between the kitchen and managing the dining room (though a second child expected early next year will require some personnel changes).

It is appropriate, then, that a young family sits down together while we are having dinner. Platters are spread out on the table before them and even the littlies look to be happily tucking in.

Indeed, the size and style of the dishes here making sharing almost obligatory.

Take the “tasting platter”, a pressed metal salver on which all of the appetisers previously listed on the menu are grouped in small ceramic bowls.

Half of it is devoted to demonstrating the capacity of eggplant to act as a conduit for other flavours.

Chameleon-like, it shifts from being the base of a familiar-tasting stew with tomato and garlic, to being fried for a combination including whey and mint, to being smoked and blitzed with walnut and pomegranate to create an intriguing relative of babaganoush.

With pickled vegetables, fabulous olives in pomegranate, saffron rice and bread also included, this “tasting” is on the verge of becoming a full meal.

Saffron dessert with poached pear, ice cream and floss.

Lamb and chicken are the proteins of choice throughout the main courses, which are split between rice dishes and casseroles. The selection is rounded out by a trio of vegetarian options and a single daily special.

For Friday, this is “tahchin”, described in a way that has us expecting a pilaf-like preparation of yoghurt-infused rice and chicken. Instead, layers of these two components are pressed together in a small, round mould and then fried until the rice
on the outside has the toasty, brown crunch of grains that you might find at the bottom of a good paella.

Five of these rice cakes, scattered with pistachio slivers and sweet-sour barberries, come with a small dish of extraordinarily good chook broth in which to dip each fork load.

A soupy casserole of lamb and red beans looks a comparative plain Jane but the subtle spicing and background tang of dried lime is surprisingly enticing.

For dessert, a greatest hits compilation of saffron is another looker, with the precious dried threads giving a golden glow to a poached pear, pistachio-laden ice-cream and wisps of cotton candy that look like Rapunzel’s hair.

Tahchin (layered rice and chicken) from Naaz.

Order a pot of cardamom tea and it will come in an ornate china pot sitting above a small burner. Sip on this amber brew as Mali describes the beauty of her homeland and your must-do travel list may well gain a new destination.