Book a table and find us
Two kitchens, one dining room — Persian and Italian, cooked side by side. We're forty-eight seats on Fortess Road, five minutes downhill from Kentish Town station. Here is everything you need to be sitting down with a drink by eight.
Email a booking Call 020 7946 0813
Booking a table
We hold every table in one book, kept by whoever is on the pass phone that evening. There is no app and no third-party widget — it's a phone, an inbox, and a pencil.
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By phone
Ring 020 7946 0813 between 10am and 10pm, Tuesday to Sunday. Before 5pm you'll get whoever is prepping; after 5pm you'll get the host stand. If it rings out we're carrying plates — leave a message with a name, a number, a date and a headcount and we call back the same evening.
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By email
Write to hello@example.com with your date, time, number of people and anything we should know — a birthday, a wheelchair, a six-month-old, a nut allergy. We reply within one working day and your table isn't held until you have that reply in writing.
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Walking in
We keep the eight bar stools and the two window two-tops unbookable, every service. Turn up, put your name down, have a glass of something while you wait. On a Tuesday you'll sit straight away. On a Saturday at 8pm expect forty minutes.
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Groups of six or more
Six to nine people: book by phone or email only, and we'll ask for a card to hold the table. Ten or more goes onto a set menu — see below. We don't split one bill more than four ways, so bring a plan or bring a generous friend.
If your plans change, tell us. A cancelled table on a Friday night finds a new home in twenty minutes; an empty one just sits there looking sad. No-shows of four or more are charged £15 a head.
When we're open
Closed all day Monday — that's when the charcoal gets scrubbed and Nonna's stockpot gets a rest.
- Monday
- Closed
- Tuesday & Wednesday
- 5.30pm – 10.30pm
- Thursday
- 5.30pm – 11pm
- Friday
- 12pm – 2.30pm, then 5.30pm – 11.30pm
- Saturday
- 12pm – 3pm, then 5pm – 11.30pm
- Sunday
- 12.30pm – 8pm, one continuous service
The late walk-in window
Thursday to Saturday, from 9.45pm until last orders, every table that comes free goes to whoever is standing in front of us. No booking, no minimum spend. The grill is still lit, the pasta board is still floured, and there's usually a short list of what's left — often the best cooking of the night, because the rush is over.
Last food orders are thirty minutes before closing. The kitchen stops when it stops; the wine does not.
Finding us
Fortess Road, Kentish Town, London. Dark green frontage, brass numbers, two olive trees in pots that we drag in every November.
Trains and tubes
Kentish Town (Northern line, and Thameslink to St Pancras and Blackfriars) is the closest — leave by the Fortess Road exit, turn right, keep walking for six minutes and we're on your left just past the launderette. Kentish Town West on the Overground is nine minutes away across the high street. Tufnell Park (Northern line) is ten minutes downhill, which is the easier direction to walk it.
Buses
The 134, 214 and 390 all stop on Fortess Road within sixty seconds of the door. The 393 and C11 run along Kentish Town Road at the bottom of the hill. Night buses N20 and N134 will get you home towards Camden and the West End long after we've locked up.
Parking, honestly
Fortess Road is red route and permit bays — you will not park outside. The nearest realistic option is the pay-and-display on Lady Margaret Road, free after 6.30pm and on Sundays, and full by seven on a Saturday. Our advice, given as neighbours: come by train, or get dropped at the door and let the car go home without you.
The room
Forty-eight covers, one long banquette, a bar you can eat at and a pass you can see straight into. Tables are close together and we're not going to pretend otherwise — this is a room where you can hear the grill and, on a good night, the table next to you laughing.
- Covers
- 48 seated, plus 8 at the bar
- Step-free
- Level entry from the pavement
- Accessible WC
- Ground floor, to the rear
- High chairs
- Four, ask when you book
Access
The front door is level with the pavement and 90cm wide. The dining room is one flat floor with no internal steps. Two tables near the window take a wheelchair comfortably without moving furniture; tell us when you book and we'll keep one. There's an accessible WC with grab rails at the back. Assistance dogs are always welcome and there's a water bowl behind the bar.
Children
Very welcome, especially at lunch and early evening. Four high chairs, small portions of rice, buttered pasta or a skewer off the grill, and nobody minds a bit of noise before 8pm. We don't have a baby-change table — the nearest is in the library on Highgate Road, which we're sorry about.
A busy Saturday, described plainly
From 7.30pm the room is full and loud — around 78 decibels, which is conversation-across-the-table volume rather than shouting. Service runs at two sittings: 5pm to 7.15pm, then 8pm onwards. If you book the early one we'll tell you clearly, and we'd rather do that than rush you. Want quiet? Tuesday, Wednesday, or Sunday afternoon, when the room goes slow and golden and people stay for three hours.
We built the room so you can hear the charcoal spit. If that's not your evening, come on a Tuesday — same food, half the volume, and Nima has time to talk to you about the rice.
Nima Farahani, co-owner
Private hire and groups of ten or more
Ten people or more eat from a set menu. It isn't a restriction so much as a kindness to two kitchens working one pass — it means your food comes out together and hot rather than in a slow dribble over forty minutes.
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The shared table — £42 a head
Ten to sixteen people at the long table by the window. Flatbread and dips, three antipasti, a whole grilled fish or a lamb shoulder from the charcoal, saffron rice with tahdig, a hand-rolled pasta, greens, and something with rosewater or almonds to finish. Everything in the middle; everyone helps themselves.
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The full room — £58 a head
Exclusive hire of all forty-eight covers, available Tuesday to Thursday evenings and Sunday after 4pm. Minimum thirty guests. A longer menu with both grills running, your own playlist if you insist, and the bar staffed until midnight.
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Drinks
Pay as you go from the list, or ask us to set a bar tab with a ceiling. We'll do a pre-dinner round of Persian lemonade or a Sicilian white for £7 a head if you want people holding a glass the moment they arrive.
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How to arrange it
Email hello@example.com with the date, the number and any dietary needs. We take a £15 per head deposit and confirm final numbers 72 hours before. Vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free versions of both menus exist and cost the same.
Send us a booking request
Fill this in and it lands in the same inbox as everything else. We'll write back to confirm — the table isn't yours until we do.
Everything, in one place
Nima & Nonna
Fortess Road, Kentish Town, London
020 7946 0813
hello@example.com
Bookings, press, lost coats and supplier enquiries all come to the same address. Have a look at what's cooking before you decide.