By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com
Just about every successful restaurateur worked hard to achieve that dream, but for some of our immigrant neighbors, that’s only half of the story.
Consider, if you will, an Iranian-born chef who learned Italian cooking at Vincenzo’s, then with his Afghanistan-migrant wife bounced from the upscale Italian eatery to a popular Italian food truck and restaurant that has now expanded into Louisville’s first Afghan eatery: Bellissimo.
Bellissimo – Italian for “very beautiful” – rolled around the metro, attracting a growing following for its upscale Italian fare for six years before it grew into the Buechel space vacated by Dasha Barbour’s Southern Bistro, which moved downtown. That was about a year and a half ago, and almost from the start, Chef Abbas Jamshidi and his wife Mahboba Rasoli and their three grown children added an Afghan menu to the familiar Italian delights.
“Discover Louisville’s newest culinary gem,” the owners exhort social-media followers: “Bellissimo serves up authentic Italian favorites AND is proud to be the city’s first-ever Afghan restaurant!”
We took a quick look at the Italian menu during a recent visit, but it didn’t take long to zero in on the less familiar (to us) Afghan dishes. Nine main dishes are offered, each with a clear description of its ingredients and form.
(Please note that the costly looking full-color, laminated menus have not been updated since a price change. I get that, given rising food costs, but I would have appreciated knowing that before we ordered. Our server, Fahwad, one of the family’s younger generation, was kind and helpful, so I’m not having a tantrum over this. But take note of the discrepancy if you go … as you should.
The Afghan dishes range in price from $12 (listed as $8) for Banjan Borani, an eggplant-based entree, to $19.99 (listed as $16.99) for Qabili Palow, an impressive lamb and rice dish.
The Italian menu, if you insist, comprises a dozen familiar options listed at prices from $9 to $17.
Coffee and standard sodas are available, but I opted for the experience of Afghan-style chai ($2.25), which was a happy choice. A tall, handled glass teacup bore an aromatic serving of hot, clear bronze-color tea with a distinct scent of cardamom to give it a lift. It was a welcome quaff on a brisk afternoon.
The dining room is simple and bright, decorated with a mix of Central Asian decor and a colorful vertical mural depicting an Italian village. Table settings, however, may signal the owner’s heritage at Vincenzo’s: Quality, heavy silverware was set on the tables, and dishes came out on good china plates; on the more casual side, tables go undraped, and paper napkins are provided.
But service, as noted, was attentive and kind, and the food – which is what we come for, after all – was consistently exceptional.
Qabili Palow ($19.99, pictured at the top of this page), for example, was built around a large lamb shank. Like all the Afghan meat dishes, the lamb was halal: Raised, butchered, and prepared according to Islamic requirements. In my experience, this procedure all but guarantees a natural, flavorful product, and this was no exception.
If you don’t love lamb, avert your eyes, but this long-braised shank had a distinct gamey character that I associate with free-range lamb. The meat was tender and pulled easily off the bone. It was rich with fat and collagen that made it juicy and even more flavorful, and all those juices dripped unctuously into the Afghan-style spiced basmati rice on the plate. It came with a spicy cilantro, jalapeño, and vinegar Afghan green sauce so would optionally kick up the flavor one more notch.
This dish, also known as Kabuli Palow, is often billed as “Afghanistan’s National Dish” thanks to its popularity. But our other entree, Borani Banjan ($12) also earns that frequent accolade.
It achieved similar delights to the lamb and rice dish but with a plant-based approach. Cut-up chunks of cooked eggplant were simmered with tomatoes and onions until completely tender. Then it was formed into a neat round, topped with a thick slice of cooked tomato, plated on a creamy yogurt sauce and artfully drizzled with more of the same, and finished with snipped cilantro and mint. All that brought a lot of flavors to the culinary concert, and they came together in resounding harmony.
Baklava may strike us as a traditional Greek dish, but the fame of this intensely sweet dessert pastry has carried it across the Levant and Central Asia all the way to Afghanistan. A generous slice of dense, honey-sweet Afghan-style baklava ($3), big enough to share, was built on many layers of flaky phyllo pastry enveloping finely chopped walnuts and hard-to-pin-down spices that inspired memories of orange, cardamom, honey, and roses. It was on the dense side, almost tough, but once broken down with knife and fork, it made a splendid ending.
Our meal for two came to $39.74, with all the remaining cash we could find in our pockets and purse thrown in as tip for Fawad’s friendly and helpful service.
Bellissimo
2217 Steier Lane
690-2040
facebook.com/bellissimo.lou
instagram.com/bellissimoisbeautiful
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Noise Level: A friendly group talking at a neighboring table and quiet music in the distant background did not hamper conversation, with noise levels hovering around a moderate 65dB.
Accessibility: The restaurant appears accessible to wheelchair users.
