It’s hard to miss the giant meatball. Anyone on their way to ordering at the counter inside Azizam, while passing through its patio along Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake, might instinctively sweep their gaze over the tables already full of Persian dishes. Colors parade on platters as if in competition: pickled cauliflower radiating golden turmeric, pureed beets staining yogurt hot pink, the painterly play of greens among dusky olives, sprinklings of dried mint over soup and bunches of parsley on an appetizer plate.
The kofteh Tabrizi, by contrast, is eye-catching solely for its stature: a stoic orb, just larger than a softball, lolling in a pool of ruddy sauce. Imposing yet alluring, its construction at first glance looks straightforwardly beefy, crowned with dried barberries that shine like a handful of rubies in a caper movie. Lean in to make out shapes of grains and legumes and squiggly slivers of caramelized onions, and to glimpse flecks of herbs.
The closer you look, the more you see. This can apply to so much on Azizam’s concise menu. It’s cooking easily enjoyed at face value.
In its quiet precision, though — the engineered whoosh of fragrances, the yogurt’s specific thickness and tang, the flatbread’s yielding crackle — you can also sense that every recipe leads back to a good story. The narrative begins when Cody Ma and Misha Sesar met last decade at a party. Its host, who worked with Ma at Pine & Crane, introduced them knowing that they each had parents.