i. Biography
Iranian and Persian cooking gives Kian Samyani the working grammar: kababs, bread, family recipes, and the memory of childhood visits to Iran. The structure is personal, but the reference points are practical and legible to the trade: grill heat, shared tables, inherited dishes, and flavour carried through repetition rather than display. In this register, recipes are not fixed museum pieces; they are working material, held close to heritage and adjusted through professional use.
The Trajectory
Development work at Brigadiers gave Kian Samyani a setting in which precision, clarity, fire, texture, flavour, and service had to line up under pressure. The role did not replace the food he grew up with; it gave him a sharper professional vocabulary for handling it. That early stage the later cooking depends on control as much as memory. The founding of Berenjak in 2018 put that vocabulary into a restaurant built around Iranian and Persian flavour through Samyani’s own lens. Childhood visits to Iran, family recipes, bread, kabab, and shared eating are not decorative references there; they are the operating frame. The cooking is arranged around immediacy and generosity, with heritage carried through service rather than explained from a distance.
Present Day
Persian food at Berenjak is framed by Kian Samyani around kebab and bread, rather than the more conventional kebab-and-rice pairing. That shift changes the centre of gravity. It puts dough, flame, smoke, tenderness, and the act of eating by hand into the foreground. The meal is built for passing, tearing, sharing, and returning to the table. The restaurant’s emotional frame is stated plainly by Samyani: “It’s family and culture, past, present, and future.” In craft terms, that means family recipes and early memories are worked in the present tense of service, not held apart from it. The food looks back, but it is made for the current dining room and for what Persian cooking can keep becoming through a personal, contemporary lens. The operating values are direct: transparency, honesty, strong relationships, and consistently high-quality food and service. In a restaurant built on shared food, those values are not abstract. They govern the daily exchange between kitchen and floor, restaurant and guest, memory and execution. Samyani’s line — “We’ll thrive as long as our relationships are solid” — reads as a working rule for hospitality as much as a business principle.
Signature
Chelow kabab chenjeh, Baghali polow ba mahiche, and Zereshk pollow mark the range of Kian Samyani’s cooking as given: kabab, rice, comfort, richness, and brightness held within a Persian frame. The signatures sit inside a broader practice built from family, culture, and inheritance, with the craft measured by how clearly those references survive the move into restaurant service.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Kian
What role does Kian Samyani hold?
Kian Samyani is founder and head chef.
Where did Kian Samyani work before?
Earlier in their career, Kian Samyani worked at Brigadiers.
What recognition has Kian Samyani received?
Michelin Bib Gourmand.
