Tandis

This is a hidden neighborhood gem. As others noted, the stews with meat and sour fruit are the stand outs! The grilled lamb is also very good and tastier than the chicken. The rice and bread were also delicious. The only negative is the service was pretty spotty.

It was my first time at a Persian restaurant and I wasn’t all that impressed. The atmosphere was nice, the décor is lovely and the staff were so friendly and helpful. The food wasn’t all that good though. There weren’t many flavors in the dishes we had, everything was kind of bland. I’ll give it another try.

First rate Persian place.
The stars of the show are the stews with meat and sour fruit.
But the rice is fine too.
If you have good fruit stews and you have fine alt-​rice preparations — you have Iranian cuisine covered.
(although they do plenty of the grilled dishes and mezzes that the rest of the Middle East does too — and they got those at Tandis too.)
Speaking personally, I find the prices and the décor a little too Belsize Park for my taste.
I don’t need a large wine cellar with Persian food — and I don’t need a room that looks like a French restaurant.
And yes this place does cost.
But the kitchen is quite fine and well worth multiple visits.

A nice place to go for a drink or dinner. Of course, you can always do both as the service provides great value for the price you have to pay. A party of three can get away full with only 40 quids.

My husband and I like to frequent Tandis for special occasions because of the great food and service. It is so rare to find amazing service so when we find a restaurant that excels in that we gravitate towards it. We always get the 4 starter combo where you can choose to combine any 4 starters which we order a side of naan with. We always get the olives, hummus, masto moosir, and kashke bademjaan. My husband likes to order the lamb stew and I always enjoy the khoresh baamiyeh which is a very flavorsome okra dish– both mains come with rice. It is so filling because the portions are absolutely huge. The wine list is reasonably priced as well. I ask for a table always towards the back because I don’t like the draft in the front. It’s always busy so it’s good to make reservations. I can see how this might be a difficult place for large groups of people but for parties of 4 or couples it seems perfect.

I have never eaten Iranian food before coming to Tandis so I didn’t really know what to expect but by all accounts it was Iranian food set for British palates.
The restaurant had a good layout and our group fitted comfortably in a spacious area at the back. The best part of the meal was being able to share the starters which consisted of bread and various hummus style bowls. For the main course I had a grilled chicken kebab served with rice and salad. It was certainly filling but lacked that certain something.

Some places are tots not designed for accommodating large groups. By that, I don’t mean physically but service and cooking wise.
The tandis this time (or may be it was time?) was so not as good as last time, especially the mains. The starters and bread were still pretty delish but the meat was dry and the salad made me feel sad. The food was just not that amazing or worthy of a return trip (Patogn was better).
Also I HATE it when serving staff don’t know who ordered what. I mean we all ordered some combination of chicken and lamb. I’m not here for a memory test. It’s your job to divide up that piece of paper nicely and write down who is having what.
And yes, I know. I have extreme hatred towards a lot of service related issues. I’m not allowed to judge and be mean to people so I am just super picky about service instead. Okay?

I’ve never tried Iranian food before and was excited to go to Tandis. What I’ve heard though is that I still haven’t really tried Iranian food.
The meals were fine. Meats and rice and salad… but that was about it. There was no spice, no kick, no anything that would seem to make is special. Just cooked lamb and chicken and white rice and salad with a light dressing. Not bad just not anything amazing.
Restaurant is spacious and decorated nicely. We were also a large group and they seated us easily and the service was on par. Although they did run out of diet coke and looked at me like I was insane for ordering it. («I’d like a Diet Coke.» «Ok, we have Pepsi Max.» «Is that diet?» «No. Do you want it.?» «No.»)
Overall, it was a pleasant just A-​OK dinner. Best part was the company I was with but I think I’d rather go somewhere else with them next time.

This was my second experience with Iranian food in London, and it was a pretty good one. The food met my expectations but did not exceed them. Still it was tasty though, so if you’re in the mood for some lamb kebabs in a nice atmosphere, Tandis will get the job done.

I’m finding it hard to figure out how many stars to rate this place given that I’ve never actually had Iranian food before. I don’t know how to compare it to other Iranian food. So, I’m going to have to just compare it to what I like and how I felt, and go from there.
First, we ended up here with a large group for Nava N.‘s Iranian food UYE. I was psyched. New type of food and hanging out with fellow Unilocalers can lead to a grand night out.
We shared some some starters. Hummus obviously, some sort of yogurt with elephant garlic, and three other things. (I think you can see where this is going…) They were alright. Honestly, there was nothing special for me. I can make better hummus at home. The yogurt with garlic tasted of yogurt and lemon and not much else. The other three dishes were kind of mediocre. Nothing really jumped out and wowed me.
For the main, my other half and I split a couple of courses. One was described as a sweet and sour lamb dish. The other was a grilled meat dish of lamb and poussin. The stew was quite sweet. Sweeter than I expected given it was described as sweet and sour. The grilled meats weren’t over cooked, but the other half said he thought the poussin had kind of a metallic taste. For me the meat was just a bit bland. Again it was just missing the wow factor for me.
Maybe all Iranian food tastes this way. I hope not, I imagine that it was either a bad night, or home cooked stuff is just way better.
The service was a bit strange as well. They really seem ill-​equipped to handle large groups.
I feel bad because I really wanted to enjoy it, but there just seemed to be a lot lacking. I had a fun night, but mostly due to friends, and not due to Tandis.

Was excited to take a bustling crew of Unilocalers to Tandis for the first Iranian food outing, and my first organized UYE! What to say about Tandis…
I thought the staff were mega helpful when I was setting up the reservation for a fairly large group of people, and I thought they continued to be friendly and helpful despite the cramped seating with two very large groups having booked that night. The restaurant is quite spacious when compared to other Iranian joints, and the décor is clean and lovely.
As for the food, it was perfectly serviceable. And that’s about as generous as I can get! I thought everything, from all the shared starters, to the mains, were just a tad on the bland side of things. I’m well-​versed in Iranian food, being an Iranian, and well… it all just felt a little Iranian-​food-​for-​British-​people. Where was the spice and the salt and the zing and the citrus and the… everything I love about Iranian cuisine? It was grilled meats and rice, and to a degree, you can never go wrong with grilled meats and rice, but definitely lacking a bit of «oomph.»
I kinda want to give them the benefit of the doubt that they were suddenly serving 30 people at exactly the same time, so the flavor suffered a bit, but I just don’t see myself returning when there are other options out there that are just more flavorful and a bit less expensive.

Well after the arduous climb up Havistock Hill you are met with Tandis. The outdoor seating which are black wooden table & chairs, one of the seating is good for drinks only, because the table is really low, but the others which are near the gate, is for food and drink.
Inside it is small, intimate, and quiet, with a beautiful interior. Its a good date spot as well. It has a further back room as well, which is good for a small group. Tandis use to be a bar, which I can definitely believe because of the way it is set out.
The table’s have a smooth black finish with the cutlery, plates and glasses set beautifully.
The customer service was superb and very helpful concerining Persian cuisine, the waitress told us what would go well with certain food, considering with have never had Persian food before.
For starters we had Persian Naan bread which is flat and has seeds on top, which we dipped in with the yogurt. It all tasted good to me, although I thought £3:50 was steep for yogurt, it was big, but we did not finish it.
Then we ordered the Siniyen Kebab for two, which was £24 which worked out as £12 each, which was not bad considering how much food you get. Included is white rice topped with saffron rice with salad, it looked and tasted Divine especially when you added the butter to it.
Siniyen Kebab
Marinated tender lamb fillet: I was not feeling this one because of the marinay on it, other then that the lamb was well cooked.
Grilled minced Lamb: Was awesome! delicious and tender, I had to eat that one slow and savour it. you can taste the mince of it as well.
Marinated Chicken Pieces: Again wonderful in taste, tender and you can taste the flavour.
When we left, we were greeted off by the manger/​staff which was nice. Because of the location of the restaurant, their is lots to do because Chalkfarm and Camden our down the road.
I like Tandis I shall be back, it worth the climb and the food.

We popped in here for a late lunch with friends, and were really impressed. We skipped the starters and shared a combination of kebabs and stews. Each of us got a big plate of perfectly cooked Saffron rice, which went very well with the lamb, chicken, plum and spinach mains we ordered. Everything was cooked perfectly and delicious. Try out the Persian tea too, sweet and refreshing.
With a round of drinks, this came in at about £15 a head, great value. One word of warning though, the menu quotes beer prices for pints and half pints, but we got 330ml bottles of beer, so felt a tiny bit short-​changed at £3.60 a bottle. If we’d realised they weren’t pint bottles or from draught, we’d probably have stuck with the teas and saved £12 off the bill.
Overall though, a great option for a quiet lunch.

Having read about this place in the recent Time Out (Eat well for less than a tenner) we headed here for dinner on a Monday night. Booking a table on that day would not have been necessary as it only slowly filled up over the evening.
It’s a very nice restaurant with modern interior. Staff was very friendly (already when booking on the phone) and attentive.
For starters we shared a selection of 4 different ones for 10 Pounds. While one of the aubergine dips and the chive yoghurt dip were really nice, the other aubergine one wasn’t quite as tasty, and also the feta cheese didn’t blow me away. Delicious however was the flat sesame bread that accompanied the starters (ask for it seperately). Portions were really generous, we needed to have a little break before the mains.
If we had known how generous the mains are we would have taken an even longer breakevery dish came with a big pile of fluffy rice, perfectly cooked and a very decent amount of meat/​stew/​one of the biggest lamb shanks ever seen in London ;-) — they happily get you a to go bag if you don’t finish it all.
But not only was it a lot, it was also nicely prepared. The chicken mince could have been a bit tastier, but the lamb was nicely flavoured, not too strong though, but definitely typical Persian flavours.
Did we stay under a tenner? No, because we couldn’t get around trying their cocktails (6 Pounds each) which were good. Also, some of the mains are around 10 – 11 Pounds (lamb shank and fish for example), while others range around 8 Pounds (a bit less even for the vegetarian stews). Still, these prices won’t break the bank. Considering the quality and quantity of food you get it’s good value.