Fine restaurants spring up to serve Iran’s elite

With its high ceilings, big chandeliers, grey and red velvet furniture, and walls decked in contemporary Iranian art, the Divan restaurant, which serves modern Persian fusion cuisine, is one of the most exclusive restaurants in Tehran.

On the eighth floor of a shopping mall in the affluent north of the capital, diners at Divan enjoy a view of the mountains that surround the Iranian capital. On their way to dinner, they can stop off at the floors below where shops sell expensive watches, furniture and clothes.

Welcome to the rarefied world of the Iranian elite, the tiny proportion of the country’s 75m population that has managed to thrive despite international sanctions that have seen ordinary Iranians struggle with a weak currency, rising inflation and stubborn unemployment.

While the capital once boasted just a handful of fine restaurants popular with foreign diplomats and Iranian expatriates, over the past year more than a dozen new restaurants have opened and most of the diners are Iranian.

There are few options for socialising in Tehran, thanks to a ban on clubbing and bars serving alcohol and a limited choice of cinemas and theatres. Increasingly, the city’s elite choose to eat out.

“The new restaurants are to address the demand of a class who drive Porsches, wear suits worth €20,000 and need to eat out,” said Saeed Leylaz, an economic analyst. “The government of [outgoing president Mahmoud] Ahmadi-Nejad created this political class but now they are only loyal to their wealth and want to have peace.” These people, who make up about 1 per cent of Tehran’s population of 12m, have the kind of wealth enviable not just by Iranian but also by international standards, said Bernard Ezraeelian, who manages Leon restaurant. They have the kind of lifestyle that means they can enjoy restaurant food most nights of the week, he said.

The customers range from the nouveau riche to wealthy Iranians of noble origin. The women cover their hair with fine scarves – in an effort to observe the obligatory Islamic dress – and sport shoes and handbags made by Western designers.

The restaurants cannot always match the expectations of those used to fine dining in Europe’s capitals. “Food-wise, you cannot compare these restaurants with top-notch restaurants in Europe and obviously you miss good wine on the table,” said a 52-year-old western-educated architect. “But I suppose this is the best you can have in Iran.”

More restaurants are on the way. Privately owned Monsoon Group owns six restaurants, including Divan, and plans to add two more in the coming months, offering French and Chinese fare. “New venues and infrastructure in Tehran such as shopping malls have changed the concept of fine dining,” said Ramin Varasteh, one of the four western-educated partners of Monsoon Group.

Yet for the vast majority of Iranians, the average Divan bill of 1m rial or $40 per head – roughly one-fifth of a monthly wage – means they are unlikely to darken its doors. “The only thing we had in our life was to go to a coffee shop once a week [and even ] that we cannot do any longer,” said Azar, a 52-year-old university-educated government employee.

The city’s one western-owned restaurant, the Italian chain Bice Ristorante, is located in the Persian Azadi hotel. Its presence in the hotel, previously known as the Hyatt, offers a certain irony in a country known for its isolation from the west. The hotel is affiliated to the Oppressed and War Disabled Foundation, a charity that has taken on numerous business interests, set up by the regime after the 1979 Islamic revolution to help the poorest segments of the society and those who were injured during the war with Iraq in the 1980s. The restaurant’s manager in Iran declined to speak to the Financial Times.

Even those operating at the highest end of the Iranian restaurant market have to negotiate a way round the country’s ban on serving alcohol in public.

Some import syrups from France and Armenia to serve non-alcoholic cocktails, said Mr Ezraeelian. “Instead of Coca-Cola, people can have cocktails which look beautiful on the table and conjures up a feeling of having wine,” he said.

Not all the younger customers stick to the rules. Some add black market rum to non-alcoholic Mojitos. It is not unusual for glasses of sour cherry or pomegranate juice to be refilled with French or Spanish wine. “If it is obvious and a bottle of red wine is put on the table, we will deal with it,” said one restaurant owner. “But if customers do it delicately, we ignore it.”

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2013.