Persepolis

Saffron at the pass

Saffron, lemon and onion set the first register at Persepolis in New York City, before the skewers reach the grill. The room is on 2nd Avenue in Lenox Hill, and the work at the pass is built around Persian sequence: yogurt first, rice as structure, meat and stew carrying the depth. Chef San Sethachutkul leads the kitchen, with a stated goal of serving the finest Persian feast from the best ingredients local markets and Persian imports can supply. No career history is public for him, so the reading has to stay with the sourcing and the sequence.

At Persepolis, that discipline meets a restaurant with over 35 years of New York memory. The house has long presented Persian cooking as a full table rather than a single plate: dips, herbs, rice, fire, broth, fruit, tea. The kitchen’s job is not to make that vocabulary louder. It is to keep the line steady, to let the saffron marinades do their time, and to keep the gestures legible through service. Persepolis was selected for the Michelin Guide in 2025.

Rice, smoke and sour cherries

The program turns on a few materials used with conviction. Boneless chicken takes saffron, lemon and onion before grilling. Beef Kubideh comes from the skewer with basmati rice flecked with sour cherries, a tart-sweet counterweight that makes the rice more than a side. Eggplant Halim begins with roasted eggplant and onion, then moves into lentils and yogurt until the spread sits smooth enough for the bread to drag through it cleanly. The stews work in another tempo: Ghormeh Sabzi leans on herbs, while Fesenjan draws its body from pomegranate, walnuts and shredded chicken.

The menu keeps the architecture of a Persian feast without turning it into ceremony. Yogurt appears with cucumber, shallots, spinach or beets; KuKu Sabzi brings herbs, egg and barberries into a cut piece; Dolmeh gives the table stuffed grape leaves before the larger plates arrive. Seafood sits inside the same method, with salmon kebab and grilled shrimp following the house’s preference for lemon, butter, rice and the grill. At the end, Persian Lemon Ice brings rice noodles and cherry syrup into a cold, tart finish.

Second Avenue through big windows

The room works quietly while the kitchen holds its rhythm. Linen-draped tables and spacious banquettes soften the edges of the service, and the big windows facing Second Avenue keep the city visible without letting it take over the meal. The light is low, the room warm rather than theatrical. It suits food that arrives in components: a yogurt dip set down before the kebab, a plate of rice carrying sour cherries, a stew whose fragrance reaches the table before the spoon breaks its surface.

There is an oversized painting of the 1973 Persepolis soccer team in the room, a piece of memory that keeps the restaurant tied to Iranian culture without explaining itself too much. Persepolis was selected for the Michelin Guide 2025, with the continuity of the bench in skewers over rice, eggplant worked into Halim, tea scented with cardamom, and the last cold spoonful of Persian Lemon Ice.