"When you’re mentally preparing yourself for a good portion of the evening to revolve around your happily loved up friends criticising your Hinge profile under the guise of “tough love”, knowing that you’re going to be eating Hafez’s excellent dips can soften the blow. Because while they pick apart your photo choices, you can pick apart the freshly baked taftoon bread. This Persian spot on Hereford Road, has a starter section filled with things like a smokey kashk-e bademjan, refreshing mast o khair, and a salad-e olivieh that you should scoop up with warm bread while they’re busy ‘tweaking’ your profile. The mains here are also great, so get a bunch of their grilled meats, and ask for the table for three by the front, so no-one will know who the third wheel is." - heidi lauth beasley, rianne shlebak