Watch out, Westwood and Glendale: There’s a brand-new glitzy Persian spot coming to town next year, and I happen to think it’s one of the best Persian restaurants in the country. Slated to open in the summer of 2025, greater Atlanta-based Rumi’s Kitchen is opening a location at Westfield Century City. According to What Now Los Angeles, the restaurant chain recently applied for a liquor license. It’s the sixth expansion for the upscale dining brand, which already boasts three outposts in greater Atlanta as well as satellite locations in Washington D.C. and Houston.
Current Los Angeles Times restaurant critic Bill Addison once hailed Rumi’s Kitchen as the ”crown jewel” of Sandy Springs, a suburb in greater Atlanta with a robust Persian dining scene not dissimilar to Glendale. The Century City location (which will take over the mall’s old Pink Taco space) also represents a homecoming of sorts for chef-owner Ali Mesghali, who grew up in Los Angeles. If the new Rumi’s Kitchen is anything like the ones elsewhere, the restaurant will serve an impeccably crafted kebab-centric Middle Eastern menu including several varieties of koobideh, hummus, mast-o-khiar and khoresh bademjan, a creamy roasted eggplant dip topped with yogurt. Housemade sweets like kunefe—a traditional Middle Eastern dessert—and thoughtful house cocktails will round out the all-star menu.
Over a lifetime, I’ve visited basically every major Persian restaurant in Los Angeles, and while each have their strengths and merits, none measure up in overall quality and consistency to the single night I experienced at Rumi’s Kitchen in Alpharetta this past spring. We’re talking juicy, well-seasoned kebabs and perfectly executed sides. In a city with a Persian dining scene that—with a few exceptions, like the recently opened Azizam—feels immutably set in its ways, this new out-of-town opening is sure to turn heads.
Rumi’s Kitchen is slated to open summer 2025 and will be located at 10250 Santa Monica Boulevard.