Darya Restaurant

Always disappointing and overpriced. It seems like the quality and quantity is diminishing while the plate prices keep going up. But some of my coworkers see it as a exotic food!!!‘n

This was a good place. One of my customers treated me to lunch. Great, fresh food. Great options for lunch $ 11-​$ 15. All nice and filling

Oh me oh my where do I even start. Came here hungry and walked away so satisfied. From the food to the service everything was phenomenal. This place is amazing the food was spectacular, service outstanding and ambiance relaxing. I recommend this place to anybody looking to capture the exquisite Persian cuisine.

I have been going to this place for about 10 years. Food was the best in OC if not So cal. I had not been there for a while but I when with a friend few days ago. The food was not good. I can’t say it is was even kind of ok. Service and ambiance is always good, price is now lot higher and I would expect better food than this.
Sorry to see it going down now.

We (party of 8) had lunch at Darya today, and even though the restaurant was packed (definitely a sign of a great restaurant), the service was outstanding! The food, to name a few, loobia polo, boneless chicken, fish, and kabob barg, were all well prepared and delicious! And the dessert, one better than the other! We will all be back soon!

Amazing and friendly staff. Great music, service, amazing food, wonderful events. If your in town and want great persian food, make sure to stop by. There is great seating inside, a bar, and great outside seating, with sunbrellas, music and a wonderful fountain.

If 10 stars were a option, I would had given Darya 10!!! From exceptional customer service to the beautifully décor and finally the very delicious Persian food I ever had!!! I am truly a fan and love the idea that they deliver and of course does catering as well. I had such a wonderful time for my birthday earlier this week. The staff was so accomadating and constantly making sure I had the best birthday ever! Thank you so much Darya!!!

This was our first time trying Persian food. Our server Ivan was really sweet and gave us great suggestions! The food was simple and delicious! We had the borani as an appetizer with lavash. We tried the chicken kabob, shrimp kabob, and ghey mey (without meat cuz my sister is a vegetarian). All the dishes came with plenty of basmati rice and tasted amazing! The food was light yet filling. Definitely going to come back here soon! Thank you so much for the delicious food and wonderful service Ivan!

I hadn’t been to Darya for over 7 years, but my coworkers suggested going for lunch. I have to say that this was probably the worst Persian food that I have ever had in my life. The food that I ordered tasted like it was days old or that it was frozen and had been defrosted. Not only that, but we had to ask waiter to reheat our food THREE times. I do not suggest eating here and I wouldn’t come back again.

I can’t say enough good things about this restaurant. Their food is always fresh and delicious. It doesn’t matter if you come in earlier in the day or later in the evening.
Also, their delivery service is equally amazing. They deliver to my work and home. I still can’t believe I can have Persian food delivered to my house. I ordered dinner last night to be delivered at 830pm which is pretty late for a delivery service. They were quick, my food was hot and fresh and the young lady who delivered was dressed nicely and had a smile on her face, which I greatly appreciated.

I am so extremely disappointed by Darya’s customer service that no matter how good their food is, I will never return.
I made a reservation for twelve people a week in advance for my graduation. The day before my reservation, I receive a voicemail that they will be cancelling my reservation because someone else had booked the entire restaurant. This is simply inexcusable. If you do not plan on honoring reservations for your customers who are DEPENDING on your word, then do not offer them in the first place.
When I confronted the management about the fact that this was (1) a day before my reservation, (2) I had heard nothing from them all week, (3) poor customer service, and (4) at the time I made the reservation no one had mentioned that my reservation could be cancelled if they had the opportunity to profit from someone renting the entire restaurant, they responded by saying that «they didn’t know that such a situation would occur.»
Their lack of customer service is absolutely inexcusable. I refuse to support a restaurant, no matter how big or small, who doesn’t value their customers reservations, and has the audacity to cancel a party of twelve the day before the reservation.

Excellent service! The food is delicious! very clean and classy place. Plenty of parking.

I got the beef kabob to go. It cost $ 13 and consisted of one kabob with 4 pieces of very good beef and some grilled onions and tomatoes and an insane amount of rice.
The dish was very good but i think it is over priced for the amount of actual food vs rice served. My kabob was literally hidden by all the rice.
I think there are better priced Persian restaurants in the area.
The restaurant itself is clean and «fancy» but feels like it is stuck in 1995 with the over-​the-​top décor. The staff that helped me was polite but not warm or friendly.

I hosted a small business dinner here where I invited a few people that came to the area from out of the country. Being Persian, I was very excited to share my culture through food as they do when I visit them. I drove all the way from L.A. where there is a plethora of Persian restaurants so I can take them to a place that has a reputation of serving top notch Persian cuisine with a level of class that is unmatched in the L.A. area.
So let me tell you about my experience. They try to hard to put on a demeanor/​act that is reminiscent of an old school french restaurant in the heart of Paris. The butler looking waiters that don’t look you in the eye and just look up constantly to show they are sophisticated. You can’t really get any true friendliness and it’s just not up with the times. There is a coldness about the people who work there and although I tried to break it by speaking the language and showing I am one of them, they weren’t having it. The stick was too far up their behinds and it damaged the part of their soul that holds who they really are.
The décor is very nice and upscale. Definitely beautiful and unmatched by any other Persian restaurant in L.A. They are one of the originals and they are very proud of it. They had a stage area where they said they have entertainment on weekends.
The service was not terrible, but definitely not great either. Cups should never remain empty for more than 5 minutes and there should be more show of concern when they don’t have something you order and at least make up for it. This brings me to…
The food. To run out of tadig at a Persian restaurant is to not have french fries at a burger joint. If you don’t have it, just close down until you do. After bragging about this amazing element of our food, I got people excited about it only to let them down. I then opted to get their eggplant appetizer dish which was amazing. However, their dolmeh which was grape leaves stuffed with beef and rice was left to be desired. First off, it has zero flavor and it is way overpriced for what it is, like other things on the menu. The kabob I ordered was barg, Koobideh, chicken barg and Cornish hen chicken. I requested it family style so we can all experience the different options. The Koobideh was very unusually dark and black. It looked unappetizing and the flavor was very average. The barg was also lacking robust flavor, but was cooked well. Both chicken options also were very average which I expected more for such a place. They also bring you half a tomato. Really? You want to save $ 0.10 cents that bad?
Lastly the tea was flavorless and overpriced as well. I just don’t understand why they are cheating out on such key things that represent Persian culture which is all about welcoming, abundance and pride in ones own craft. I hope that this establishment will read this review and get their act together because they are very well known and they represent our culture, so they have a responsibility to be at their best.

As a Persian, this is definitely not the best Persian restaurant out there. They have the ambiance yes, but I wouldn’t say the food is anything spectacular. The barg kabob had no flavor and the koobideh was too over cooked. I don’t see myself coming back here unfortunately. The service wasn’t that great either which I think is a key component to someone enjoying their time when they go out to eat.
Lastly, running out of tadig? Come on guys… Be REAL Persians. That just doesn’t work.

I have eaten at Darya’s several times, but not recently, so when my friends suggested it after a movie, I was happy to go. It was a perfect choice. The food was delicious, and the staff couldn’t have been more attentive.
We went on a Tuesday evening, and reservations were not necessary, but the restaurant was busy, so on another night, they might be necessary. I had the Adas Polo, which is rice with chicken, lentils, dates, and, I think, barberries. It was delicious, but the portion was huge. I ate about ¼ of it and took the rest home, One of my friends had the lamb shank, which she liked very much, and the third person in our group had the chicken koobideh (grilled ground chicken), which she thought was very tasty. Their portions were not quite as large as what I had, but still were generous.
The dishes were all presented in a pleasing way.

Oh man, I am so disappointed with this restaurant. My toddler doesn’t like restaurant food, so my main go-​to option when it comes to eating out with him is chicken Kabab and rice. It’s the closest thing to what he eats at home, and while I get tired of eating it, it’s always preferred to have a happy kiddo. Unfortunately, it wasn’t anything near edible when we visited on a weekday afternoon after doing some shopping across the street at south coast plaza.
At peak lunch hours, the entire restaurant only had 3 tables with patrons indoors and another 3 Outside, which should have alerted me as to what to expect with our meal.
The price is absolutely out of this world for the quality and amount of food. With two entrees, one drink, and a yogurt dip, our meal totaled almost $ 40, which is absolutely insane. To make matters worse, they start off the meal with cold, stale squares of cheap lavash and squares of pre-​wrapped butter. With these prices, I would expect warm fresh baked bread and some fresh herbs and onion.$ 9 for a single skewer of chicken koobideh and a few spoonfuls of rice and $ 14 for 5 small pieces of boneless chicken Kabab and rice. The chicken for both entrees was so unbelievably salty and otherwise lacking flavor that it pointed to the meat being either old or very low quality due to its sodium bath. The chicken was colored with turmeric and food dye instead of saffron and we all had horrible stomach aches and GI issues after eating here. It made for a horrible rest of the day and evening.
Service was abysmal and we had to flag down the waiter and busboy several times for water, silverware, and the check. We won’t be coming back.

Came here with a couple of friends, one of whom is Persian – this was his recommendation. It’s a large, classy-​looking joint (if a tad overdecorated in the Dynasty persuasion) but not too stuffy. The friendly servers made us feel at home and it helped that we had a sort of native guide to recommend dishes for us. We ended up sharing several different plates, and I must say, they were all quite delish. The koobideh was my favorite, however – it was juicy and flavorful. As my first foray into Persian food, it was a great introduction. There happened to be a female singer the evening we were there and she was pretty good. I’m generally not a huge fan of live entertainment while I’m eating but at least this wasn’t too disruptive.
STEPH JUDGEMENT: Authentic Persian food in an upscale setting with friendly service.

I ordered delivery from Darya through Doordash after spotting their advertisements inside South Coast Plaza. I heard rumors that it’s in the same league as Caspian in Irvine, where I ordered from a week ago and found it to be less impressive compared to Raffi’s Place and the collection of Persian restaurants in Westwood. Despite these warnings, I wanted to give this place a try myself.
The listings on Doordash were a little odd, there’s Darya and Darya Express. The prices at Darya Express were about $ 2 lower for the same items, so of course I chose the latter. For my entrees, I ordered the ash reshteh and gheymeh badejman. Both items were prepared lightning fast within 15 minutes.
The ash reshteh was extremely minty and the fried caramelized onions floating on top gave the soup nice aroma. Fresh ingredients were used in the soup, and there was plenty of chopped spinach in my bowl. The seasoning was exceptional. If you like a nonstop burst of herbal, mint, and bitter flavors, then I would recommend this hearty soup to you. If not, go for the milder lentil soup instead. Besides this soup arriving lukewarm, it was excellent.
The gheymeh badejman, on the other hand, was a disappointment. The eggplants were so soft that they nearly had a texture of being melted, probably from being boiled for a very long time. Similarly, the split peas were softened and a little mushy. The stew was intensely rich of sweet tomato flavor, so I thought that it would be a dish better shared with other people. Due to the richness of the sauce, it almost always has to be eaten with a lot of rice and in moderation. My only complaint is that this dish was incredibly oily although none of the ingredients were particularly savory.
I’m on the fence on trying Darya again. Perhaps their kabobs are more fresh and tasty compared to their stews, but I can think of many other kabob houses in the neighborhood that charges less than $ 27 for decent shish kabob.

When you think of lamb chops, kabobs, basmati rice, hummus and fine dinning with a romantic ambiance this is where you go. I had the lamb chops with basmati rice and tomato. That was so delicious when I was eating all the pieces of the meat off the bone. I think my friend was having fun watching me eat lamb chops with my fingers more than eating their chicken kabobs with basmati rice and tomato. I like to use that red pepper spice over my rice not sure what it is then its good to just sprinkle some on. The bread and butter was kind of plain without ordering some hummus to use it to dip the bread in would have made it tastier.
This restaurant is very classy with string lights and dimmed lights at night perfect for a romantic dinner. Sometimes they got someone singing songs or playing instrumental music. Service is great here. This is one of those hidden gems you got to try if you really like middle eastern food.