This 20-year-old restaurant in Auburn takes its kebabs, one of Iran’s national dishes, very seriously.
If you’ve only eaten kebabs beneath the fluorescent lights of a late-night takeaway shop, it’s time to expand your palate. At Darband, a family-owned restaurant in Auburn, they’re made Persian-style: marinated lamb koobideh, minced in house with a finely tuned fat-to-protein ratio and cooked over hot charcoal for a rich, smoky flavour. It’s plated simply, with grilled tomato and saffron basmati rice.
“We recently had a customer tell us that it tasted exactly like the kebabs he remembered eating in Iran,” said second-generation co-owner Naseem Hemmati, who worked with brother Hasan Hemmati to relaunch the 20-year-old restaurant in December.
That compliment meant a lot to the family. Iranians take their kebabs seriously, and chelow kabab (the style served at Darband) is considered one of their national dishes. Naseem’s father, Morteza Hemmati, has been perfecting his recipe since he opened the restaurant with wife Elham Tabii in 2005.
Aside from a short stint at now-closed takeaway chain Pizza Haven, Morteza didn’t have much experience in hospitality. But he missed the food his mother used to make in Tehran, and when an old fruit shop closed on Rawson Street, he recognised an opportunity.
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“There weren’t as many Iranian restaurants around at the time, and I think it was a way for him to reconnect with his culture and also to be able to share with his community,” Naseem said.
“He learnt everything on the job. His mum taught him how to make everything over the phone, and over time he made the dishes his own, tweaking and perfecting them with the help of my mum, who makes sure the food tastes as good as the food we eat at home.”
It was a no-frills operation – the type of restaurant where neighbouring families gathered for weeknight dinners, feasting on hearty bowls of ghormeh sabzi (mixed herb stew with lamb, kidney beans and dried lime), baghali polo (lamb shank with broad beans and dill rice), and their famous garden salad with the pastel pink, mayonnaise-based dressing.
But after 20 years, it was time for a change.
“Travelling overseas, and eating at restaurants like Berenjak in London, changed my perspective about Iranian dining,” said Naseem, who grew up in her family restaurant.
“It was the atmosphere they created – the interiors, the way they served the food, the way they interacted with the customers – it just felt like nothing I’d ever experienced in Sydney.
“Sydney has so many cool, young restaurants serving Lebanese or South Asian cuisine, but no one had really done it for Iranian cuisine at that time.”
In partnership with their parents, Naseem and Hasan spearheaded the move into a larger site, just around the corner on Northumberland Road. They designed a contemporary fitout, warmed by the nostalgic touch of thrifted Iranian records, prints and even vintage 1960s’ Paykan (a licensed version of the Hillman Hunter manufactured in Iran).
The food, the hospitality, and the customers remain largely unchanged. There are still 25-seat tables requested for big family dinners, a kebab-forward menu (now with marinated chicken wings, Naseem’s favourite), and Morteza on the tools in the kitchen.
“My dad is quite old school, and it did take a lot of convincing … but once he saw the final product he was like, ‘Oh, this is really cool’,” Naseem said.
“It’s not fine-dining by any means,” she said. But it is a little fancier.
Open lunch and dinner daily
28B Northumberland Road, Auburn, darbandrestaurant.com.au
Bianca Hrovat – Bianca is Good Food’s Sydney eating out and restaurant editor.
