Arian

Love this place! My dad (Persian), myself and my boyfriend have been here a few times and were very impressed with the food and service. Highly recommended!

Undoubtedly the worst restaurant experience I’ve had in Manchester…
I’d been wanting to try Arian since my friend had told me that whenever she tried to book they said they had no tables til 9pm so we thought it must be good if it’s so popular!
Same story when we booked in but we didn’t mind waiting til 9! Only weird thing was, we turned up before 8 to go to carringtons and a quick drink in Morley Cheeks before our meal and when we walked past Arian at 8pm it was half empty???
When we arrived we were not impressed with the décor, we were seated at a table next to a wall with so many splatters on we chose to sit in the next chair up! They also still had their Xmas decs up!!!
It took us an hour to get our starters from the time we ordered and at this point I hadn’t even been given the tea I’d ordered… Luckily it was byob so we did have wine because there was no one to be seen front of house, at one point I saw a lady have to go behind the bar and get her own glass as she’d been waiting so long for someone to come and see to her.
Starters arrived and they were lukewarm and tasteless. The persian bread which I would expect to be the best part of the meal was so stale and cold it had taken on the shape of the basket! The falafel sauce was clearly out of one of those cheap takeaway bumper sauce bottles — I know because we used to buy them when we lived near the curry mile and can spot those emulsified sauces a mile off! Coincidentally, the bread very much resembled the prepacked flat breads we used to buy at the same place…
Anyway, no check backs on the food whatsoever and more waiting for our starter plates to be cleared, we’d been there for almost two hours so at this point my partner had decided enough was enough. I’m not one for making a fuss in restaurants but our Saturday night had been marred and our friends were waiting for us in the pub. The waitress came to collect our plates but didn’t ask how the food was so my partner volunteered the info about how bad it had been and asked if we could pay for what we’d had — the two starters and the tea — and leave. She said she would go and tell the manager (who I’m assuming was also the chef as we hadn’t seen anyone else all night).
She came back saying our mains were almost ready but my partner said no, he just wanted the bill.
He had been polite up to this point but when the waitress returned with our mains and kept insisting on putting them down on the table saying «if you don’t like them don’t pay for them»… despite our protests, my partner said «you’ve offended me now! Take them away!» Which she eventually did…
Then the manager /​chef stormed out of the kitchen and basically said it was our fault for booking in at 9pm (even though he was the one who’d said this was the only available time) and that we were wrong because no one else had complained that evening (not true, we’d heard the neighbouring table sending starters back). My partner asked again to pay for what we’d had but the manager pointed at the door and said «you don’t pay anything»… Feeling humiliated and very disappointed, we scuttled out leaving behind a third of a bottle of really nice wine we’d treated ourselves to from carringtons next door?
Such a shame that a restaurant that was obviously quite decent at one point has gone so far downhill. Our evening was ruined by what happened at at Arian and there’s no excuse for how we were treated that evening!

Fantastic spot. Frequented by local expat Iranians which is always a good sign. Friendly service, delicious Persian food. BYO. Much better than Persia Grill.

One of the best restaurants I have been to recently. I had chicken salad to start with followed by koobideh kebab and saffron rice. The meal was first class. I will definitely be going again soon since there are lots of dishes on the menu which I haven’t tried before. The only down side was that the restaurant was not licensed, which we were not aware of when we went. Luckily there was an off-​licence just across the road!