A couple of young women wearing head scarves laugh in the open kitchen as they stuff dumplings with sautéed, sweet onion and carrot filling, then deftly crimp the edges, arrange them in steamers and top the hot morsels with lamb and yoghurt. The dumplings come fried, too, stuffed with leek, and they are the order of the day for the queue forming outside at 11.30am on a Tuesday.

Run by an Afghan family who fled their Soviet-occupied country in 1987, Deli Parwana is no ordinary Afghan restaurant. This is the family’s next-generation offering after their successful and treasured Parwana. It’s a mere slip of an eatery on hipsters’ Ebenezer Place. On the deep blue walls hang old family portraits, postcards of Mecca, naïve chalk drawings.

The food is comforting and vibrant at once. The signature banjan borani, eggplant slices simmered just before they completely dissolve into a tomato sauce, is topped with fresh, sharp and creamy yoghurt sauce, florescent pink cauliflower and carrot pickles and served, as everything is here, with sultana-dotted fragrant rice. Don’t miss the house-made chai, it’s fresh and strong and it would take you right back to Afghanistan if only you’d ever been. Thankfully for us, this authentic family of stellar cooks has come to us instead.
Tel: 08 7225 8586

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