I was in Newcastle for the weekend, visiting my boyfriend for a belated birthday celebration, and he took me to DOOD, a Persian restaurant situated right on the Quayside in a beautiful, old, industrial-looking building. Now, I should start by saying that I didn’t choose this restaurant, so I can’t really take any credit for ‘finding’ it; however, I have commented on it before when Ramsay and I walked past, so it has been on my radar for a while. 

I must say, to start with, that the absolute stand-out of this restaurant has got to be the service, which was impeccable from start to finish. It really does elevate an evening when the staff go out of their way, which was especially nice because we were celebrating! 

DOOD is a Persian restaurant, which is one of Dad’s favourite cuisines and thus, one I have a fair amount of experience with. The food here absolutely surpassed expectations and felt really decadent due to the slight twists on classic Middle Eastern dishes. We opted for the Bedouin Set Menu, which included a black chickpea hummus topped with truffle oil, harissa chicken wings, falafels, toasted pita, and spiced olives. The hummus was a standout, so creamy with a really rich, deep umami flavour – I think that’s due to the black chickpeas – a must-have if you visit. The wings were incredibly tender, with a lovely char, because they’d been cooked over an open flame. The falafels were pretty good, although they fell victim to a classic falafel problem of being a tad dry, and the pita and olives were, of course, lovely. 

So one thing about the set menu is that it just said you’d get a variety of hot and cold mazehs, kababs, khoresht (like a slow-cooked stew) and desserts, so we really didn’t know what we’d get. However, I liked that because there was nothing on the menu I wouldn’t have enjoyed. 

For mains, they brought over a plate of kababs; a spiced lamb kofta-style skewer and then a really delicate monkfish. I’ve never had monkfish before, and certainly never as a kabab, but it was so tasty, really flaky but with a meaty flavour too. These were served on buttery saffron rice and came with mast-o-khiar (similar to a tzatziki or cacık) – a really nice fresh counterpart to the rich meat. We were also given a bowl of chicken stew with a celery sauce; however, Ramsay and I agreed that it was neither of our favourites. It had a nice savoury flavour but just didn’t reach the same standards as the kababs. 

To finish, although I must admit we hardly ate any of it due to being intensely full, we were given Kunafa, which was spun pastry with cheese underneath and covered in syrup and pistachios. I’ve seen this before and always been intrigued by how it tasted, and it was really delicious, but it was so, so sweet, I don’t think even if I hadn’t been full, I would have managed much of it! They did give us a mint tea and a date, though, which was a perfect way to end the meal.

Ultimately, a really lovely evening in a restaurant, I would highly recommend. I’m looking forward to going to a couple of other restaurants in Newcastle in the future and seeing what else it has in store!

– Koré