Persepolis

For more than three decades Persepolis has served Iranian cooking on Second Avenue in a white-tablecloth room where the owner is often working the floor. Persian food is a cuisine of rice above all — long-grain basmati steamed with saffron and finished with a crisp crust — and here the house signature is rice flecked with sour cherries, set under saffron chicken or grilled beef kebab.

Start with eggplant halim, a soft roasted dip of eggplant, onion and lentils under a spoon of homemade yogurt, and look to the slow stews for the deeper side of the cuisine. Finish with Persian lemon ice, tart and sweet, threaded with rice noodles and doused in cherry syrup. The Michelin Guide lists it as one of the city's finest Persian restaurants.