My Favorite Casual Persian Restaurant In LA Where I Always Get The Excellent Mezeh And A Flavorful Eggplant Geimeh

When my partner and I take visiting guests to the airport (always Burbank, never LAX), we recount the many meals eaten during their time in Los Angeles. Those we took to Azizam always rank it among the top gastronomic experiences of their trip. Its fresh, flavorful dishes are often their introduction to Persian food, and the restaurant now has a well-earned place on my list of regular LA spots I take out-of-town visitors.

On the drive, we reminisce about the mazeh (small plates served with barbari bread and pickles), the eggplant gheimeh (tender eggplant with a rich split pea and tomato stew, rice, and potato sticks), and maman's fried potatoes (crispy squares of potato with fruity, bright sumac). The mazeh section of Azizam's menu has many options to choose from. We love the pungent wild shallot yogurt and the fresh herb plate with vegetables and blocks of feta to build perfect bites. When it's available as a daily special, get the tahchin, a comforting block of yellow, creamy rice spiced with aromatic saffron and crisped on the edges for a pleasant crunch.

Roughly 600,000 Persians call Los Angeles home. The majority of the community lives in Westwood — on the opposite end of the megacity from me, so I rarely get to try the food because the trek can take a while. Where I am, I can easily find delicious Armenian food in nearby Glendale, but Persian food is scarce. Azizam sits on a bend of Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake, a more hipster-dense part of LA. You order at the counter, take a number to your seat, and wait for plates to fill the table. This casual setup invites you to linger over a pomegranate radler and Persian cream puff after your meal. The restaurant doesn't take reservations for small parties.

As a vegetarian, I've found that most Persian restaurants I've been to had limited options for me, with their focus on kabobs. Azizam goes out of its way to say that Persian food is not just kabobs. The owners, Cody Ma and Misha Sesar, pay homage to the home-cooked Persian food of their youth. The dishes are deep and satisfying, reminding me of the time-intensive meals an old Iranian friend would cook and share with her housemates.