Story by ADRIANNE MURCHISON/Photos by JASON GETZ
I remember it well. It was a Saturday afternoon, the day after last December’s snowstorm and I was searching for a place where a family friend and I could have a late lunch. Sandy Springs had a few inches of snow and that’s all it took to make the streets somewhat barren of cars. Everywhere we called said they were not opening until 5 p.m., so we decided to go to Rumi’s Kitchen, a favorite place of hers that she had been to just two days earlier.
When we entered the restaurant it felt as if we were stepping into another world compared to desolate Roswell Road. The bright sunlit place was bustling. It was as if everyone had come for relief from their brief cabin fever - but that wasn’t really the case. You see, Rumi’s is busy nearly all the time sans a possible lull between lunch and dinner. The eatery is open daily, except Thanksgiving, serving such plates as Chinjeh Lubio Polo, a beef sirloin kabob with garlic yogurt, braised green bean and tomato basmati rice; and Badenjoon, an eggplant and tomato beef stew with saffron basmati rice.
Chef and owner Ali Mesghali opened Rumi’s in 2007 at the corner of Roswell Road and Hildebrand, In 2013, he moved the restaurant a skip and a jump to its present spacious digs. It’s Mesghali’s third restaurant and his reputation for delicious, quality food has followed him. The Iranian native previously owned Shamshiri and co-owned Persepolis, located about a half-mile up the road.
Last April, he opened another Rumi’s Kitchen at Avalon in Alpharetta.
Mesghali recently talked with Living Northside about Rumi's success.
Living Northside: What makes your restaurant so distinctive that it attracts not only the Persian community but patrons from across the Atlanta area?
Mesghali: When you put together the food, ambiance and service, with the wine list, we are a success. But we say, 'Now, what can we do better than we did yesterday.' I think people come because our team just believes in going above and beyond to satisfy our guests. And people will say, 'After 11 years, your quality hasn't changed.'
LN: How would you describe your cuisine?
Mesghali: Eighty percent is Iranian food. Twenty to 30 percent, we play around with countries around Iran. We use a lot of yogurt in [Iran] and flavors. Saffron is the most distinctive one. We use a lot of turmeric in our stews. We serve everything with rice.
Something like our Dolmeh – stuffed grape leaves – we make ours warm instead of cold. It has meat in it. There are other versions too. There’s Greek, Turkey and Lebanese.
In our food, we use different cuts of meat and serve kabob style. We like to season our meat and cook it on an open broiler.
LN: What countries might you turn to for experimenting with food ideas?
Mesghali: We play a lot with areas like Turkey and Lebanon. Hummus is not Iranian. Everyone will say that it's from their country but it's definitely not Iranian. We recently added flavored hummus and have a different topping on it every week. One week could be wild mushroom, the next fresh garbanzo beans, and another week lamb neck. We've also tried smoked salmon on top.
LN: What inspired you to start cooking?
Mesghali: While I was in high school in Los Angeles, I got a job in a restaurant washing dishes and learned how to cook and worked myself up from there. I think in California there are over a million Iranians, so there are a lot of Iranian restaurants. And when I moved to Atlanta, I learned how to make food taste better. I said, 'If I can make better ingredients, I can make food taste better.'
Rumi’s Kitchen 6112 Roswell Road, Sandy Springs. 404-477-2100; 7100 Avalon Blvd., Alpharetta. 678-534-8855. rumiskitchen.com
Insider Tips:
Rumi’s has their own way of preparing rice. Chef and owner Ali Mesghali says that when the rice is halfway cooked in boiling water, it’s hot inside and tender outside. At that point, they take the rice and put it in a colander, rinse it with water and then they put it back in the pot to finish cooking. “It makes it longer and it’s fluffy so it’s not sticking together,” Mesghali says.
Saffron is one of Rumi’s most significant spices. Each location uses a kilogram of saffron per month. A kilo costs about $3,000 to $3,300, Mesghali says.
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