Special Ostadi in Bur Dubai, Dubai - Restaurant Reviews

Special Ostadi

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Iranians are justly proud of their long and colourful history. From the Alexander bashing exploits of Darius the Great to the rhapsodies and rhymes of Omar al Khayyam, there’s a veritable mine of exciting cultural personae littering Persia’s past. Some might argue that Iran’s culinary history – with grilled meat featuring as the determinedly unchanging staple ingredient – doesn’t share quite the same complexity and prominence. Rightly said if you’re a stickler for sauces, elaborate desserts and daring sweetmeats – but if you are after a wholesome, honest and meaty meal, Iranian is the cuisine for you.

The Special Ostadi Restaurant, squatting precariously on the mean streets of Bur Dubai, is unlikely to dispel this theory if you base your judgement on aesthetics. If however, you’re ready to embrace the sagging walls, clamorous exterior and scorching wafts of chicken-scented air then to Ostadi you should go. For all its ramshackle rough-and-ready appearance, it’s one of the most genuinely pleasurable places we have eaten at in Dubai.

This longstanding Iranian family-run restaurant has been the hectic, bustling and charming breadwinner for three generations of the same clan. Finding a restaurant that has been in the hands of more than one generation of a family must be a first, although it seems that not much has changed since Ostadi first opened its doors in 1978.

Once seated, plates of yoghurt, cucumber and a garden’s worth of herbs will be whisked to the table whilst someone runs across the road to grab some bread. A rich viscous lentil soup comes next, redolent with chunks of warm vegetables and a hearty meaty seam running through it. As you eat, take in nearly forty years worth of paraphernalia covering the walls. Look down and the glass-topped tables imprison a small fortune’s worth of foreign notes and coins – keep an eye out for Saddam-era Iraqi tender.

Ostadi may not do an awful lot, but what they do do – kebabs – they do with gloriously transparent excellence. The mixed grills of chicken marinated in saffron, chunks of thyme-scented mutton and goat, are dragged off piping hot skewers into fragrant, steaming rounds of bread brought in from a bakery across the road. Each hunk of quiveringly tender flesh was a chargrilled joy to shovel, wantonly slathered in yoghurt and cucumber and wrapped into a morsel. It’s a gloriously hedonistic gastronomic experience, when all the pomp of cutlery and presentation have been thrown by the wayside to make room for pure, unadulterated glorious food.

We didn’t exactly place an order – hence the lack of bill below this review – but Dhs20 will buy you a feast. Our waiter seemed to read our minds and with a blessed lack of preamble, psychically flung every dish we could have desired on our table. When we had finished gorging ourselves, he presented cups of syrupy mint tea which allowed us to catch our breath. If you’ve already been, you’ll want it to be kept a secret. Sorry, this one’s too good not to share.

By Time Out Dubai