Short review- A bit pricey but excellent quality. Duck was very good and the eggplant whey/kashke bademjan was good quality. I partially prefer Eyval for the price point as it's more unique but both are excellent.
I went to this spot a few evenings ago with another person having had a reservation for four that unfortunately dropped to two. I had previously sampled Alikhani's cuisine at her Platform by JBF event and have also been to Eyval which is somewhat of a sister spot as a chef from here opened up that excellent place. The staff was very friendly here and the place has good lighting and the noise wasn't too loud even though the restaurant was quite crowded even for a Wednesday with all the seats taken. The design inside was modern but had some nice accents. The prices are a bit high here (especially with the rice but I'll get to that later) but the food quality was good enough that I didn't mind (almost.) I started with a Sour Cherry Sharbat for $10 which was fine. The other person had a orange blossom based one which she liked.
My main appetizer was the Eggplant and Whey Dip for $16 with roasted eggplant, crispy onions, cured whey yogurt, and mint oil. This dish is more commonly listed as Kashke Bademjan where "kashke" refers to the cured whey and the "bademjan" is eggplant. This was a very tasty version with some richness and sweetness from the onions (which was a mix of fried and sauteed) and roasted eggplant. I appreciated that they gave a piece of bread with it which was barbari with some sesame and nigella seeds on it which could have been a bit warmer but was still solid.
The other person had the Bruleed Sweet Potatoes for $18 with strained yogurt, lemon tahini, spiced butter glazed, and toasted almonds. The sweet potato was cooked nicely with the sauce being really tasty though the portion size was rather tiny so I'm not sure if it was worth the price point.
While ordering our mains which both consisted of stews (or khoresh,) I was surprised that rice did not come with mains. We decided to split an order of the Saffron Rice for $9 consisting of steamed basmati rice topped with saffron rice. I honestly don't care how good the quality of this rice was as I have never seen this before (outside of paying supplements for more flavored rice) and it doesn't help that the rice itself wasn't too good being less buttery and aromatic compared to most other Persian spots (being only better than Miraj which doesn't say much.) There's also a choice of herbed rice ($10) as well as a sweet rice with dates and saffron ($12) with this place not having two of the other more common options; zereshk (barberry usually with orange peel) and my personal preference albaloo (or sour cherry.) The portion size was decent but this feels like a ripoff at best and would probably just order the tahdiq instead for $6 which feels more justified.
For my main, I went with the Half Duck "Fesenjan" for $52 with braised leg of duck in pomegranate walnut sauce served with pan roasted duck breast. I love fesenjan/fesenjoon and this was an excellent version of said sauce though I wish there was a bit more of it with the only other place having a comparable version in the city being Nasrin's. By comparison, I found the depth of flavor here just better with a good mix of sourness and sweetness from the pomegranate molasses and earthiness from the ground walnuts. The braised leg was the better part of the duck as it was both very tender and absorbed the sauce while the rest of the duck was good but some pieces were unfortunately a tad chewy. I would still recommend heavily regardless of some chewy duck pieces as the sauce makes the dish and the duck was still good enough.
The other person had the Half Chicken for $38 with Bell & Evans chicken, ginger apricot sauce, barberries, almonds, and glazed orange peels. By comparison, the portion size was a lot smaller but the piece I tried was tender and the sauce had a good sourness and sweetness to it. This was solid though I heavily preferred mine as expected.
Having already spent a lot, we didn't bother with dessert though the ice cream sandwich was mad tempting (even at $16.) As someone who loves Persian food, I find this restaurant to be one of the few Persian spots which is a bit difficult to rate. The quality of the food was excellent and better than virtually all Persian spots at least in NYC with the closest being Nasrin's, but this spot eclipses it. In terms of traditional Persian food, this is easily the closest to the outstanding spots in Ridgewood (New Jersey not Queens) but you're paying a lot for that quality. In short, if you don't mind the price point, the food here is really tasty but if you want to pay similar prices and have more unique options that justify the price point more, I would recommend Eyval instead which also has better rice and a unique better version of kashke bademjan. Mid upper 4 for the quality, upper 3 for the price point. 4.3. read more