Cafe Natasha

Hamishe Bahrami was born in Northern Iran as the daughter of a rice farmer.

I originally came to the U.S. in 1976 to study English. I was a nurse in my country and I wanted to come visit America; I had a friend over here, and I liked it. I decided to go to school in New York to learn English. Life was just so different there. I was always a different kind of person even when I was in my country. I was thinking differently; I was open-minded to other cultures. I always wanted to fly away. And I loved American culture ― the cowboy style of life. I thought that if I came to America, that I would be part of that life. I would go ride a horse ― when you’re young, stuff goes to your head.

When I came here, my friend lived in New Jersey, and I stayed with her for a while and then got my own place. Just getting on the bus to school . . . . People would say good morning to you and it was like everybody respected everyone. It was completely different; a society unlike anything I’d ever seen. At night, everybody, after they finished school or work, would go to little taverns, eat, listen to music and dance, and have a drink. People living their lives the way they wanted to . . . nobody would say, "Oh, you’re a woman, why are you outside at night, and drinking?" You couldn’t do that in my country. It was freedom to live how you wanted to live and nobody would judge you. That attracted me so much ― I could be myself.

Behshid Bahrami was born and raised in Iran’s capitol, Tehran. He immigrated to the United States to obtain a master's degree in geology.

Behshid came to the U.S. in 1972 to get his master’s degree ― he got his undergrad in Iran and a master’s in New York. He drove a cab while he was in school to support himself. Then after graduation he got a job; he worked in California for a while, and the company sent him to Iran, and then when the Iranian hostage crisis began, he came back with his company to St. Louis. This was all before we met.

After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, I couldn’t go back to my country; most of my family were involved in politics and I couldn’t go back. I got help from a lawyer to get a visa to stay in this country and get a green card. He also gave me a job, so I was working in the morning and going to school at night. And then I met my husband through his brother-in-law; his brother-in-law was a classmate of my roommate. She was talking about me all the time, and he was looking for an Iranian girl to marry. After three months we got married and I moved to St. Louis, which is where he was living for work.

Hamishe and Behshid Bahrami, St. Louis, 1981

Three months after she was married, Hamishe Bahrami was pregnant. In 1982, twenty days before her daughter Natasha was born, her husband was laid off from his job as a foundational geologist.

There was a recession at that time. There was a hostage situation too ― Iran and America. It was really tough. Nobody would hire him. They would say he's overqualified or underqualified or he had a green card ― any excuse. Nobody even looked at his resume to find out how good he was.

He looked for a job for a year and a half. I had to go back to work a week after I had Natasha because we needed the money ― unemployment doesn't give you much, and we had bills to pay. We couldn't live like that and I didn’t want to be on welfare, so we decided to open our own business. He loved to cook; that’s why we got into restaurants.

In 1983, the Bahramis opened a tiny restaurant in the Paul Brown Building at 818 Olive in downtown St. Louis. They called it The Little Kitchen.
 

Paul Brown Building, 818 Olive

The cafeteria style restaurant was open weekdays for breakfast and lunch. Initially, the small space, with its open kitchen, functioned as a takeout restaurant. Later, when business picked up, the Bahramis added a small dining room across the hall.

Hamishe and her husband would get up at 3:00 a.m., swaddle their little girl, head out to pick up their meat, seafood and other provisions for the day's service, and get to work before dawn. They fashioned a swinging cradle that sat on the counter so their baby could gurgle and smile at customers.

She was such a good baby. She would sit there and play with her toys and people would come in and say, "Good morning, Natasha." And she loved it.

Behshid, Natasha and Hamishe Bahrami, The Little Kitchen

The Little Kitchen got off to a slow start, as St. Louisans were unfamiliar with the authentic Persian fare that Hamishe and her husband served.

We decided to have Persian food. We didn't have an open fire, we didn't have a grill ― we had a convection oven. And a warmer, where we cooked our rice.

When we started, nobody knew what Persian food was. There was Mexican or Chinese or Italian. Nobody knew Persian dishes. Nobody knew what kabob is. I made some stew and fesenjan, which is baked chicken in walnut pomegranate sauce. When I served that, people told me, "What is that? Is it chicken in mud?" So I took that off the menu. They didn’t even try it.

We didn’t have any customers for six months. Not really enough. Daily we would have fifty dollars in sales.

The Bahramis quickly changed their menu to reflect more familiar American lunchtime fare.

We were making less Persian food. We were making more American food. But everything fresh. We had fresh turkey, fresh roast beef, fresh corned beef, tuna salad ― what American people like to eat for lunch.

The Little Kitchen Menu (click image to enlarge)

After six months, Hamishe hired the niece of a customer who worked across the street from the restaurant, at Southwestern Bell.

She came in and said, "You give me two hundred menus. Your food is excellent. Nobody has your food ― not downtown or anywhere in St. Louis. People don’t know. You need to show yourself. Give me 200 menus."

So my husband went and printed 200 menus and gave them to her. She came back and said, "It’s going to be crazy here. You need to prep more food."

We fed 200 people that day. People stayed in a line all the way out into the hallway. Even though our prices were low, our income that day was over a thousand dollars. We sold everything.

After that, The Little Kitchen regularly had long lines for lunch.
 

Behshid and Hamishe Bahrami, The Little Kitchen

In 1993, the Bahramis opened a second restaurant at 6623 Delmar in the University City Loop.

After we were downtown for ten years, we opened a location in the Loop. We listened to people say, "You have to open a Persian restaurant." They kind of pushed us to open a restaurant. So we opened a second one in the Loop. It was just Persian food. Nothing else.

The Bahramis named their new restaurant Cafe Natasha, after their 10-year-old daughter.
 

Cafe Natasha, 6623 Delmar

Cafe Natasha was a formal, sit-down restaurant, seating about 40 people. Persian artwork decorated the walls. Behshid Bahrami did the cooking. Hamishe Bahrami did the baking and took care of the dining room.

For two years, the Bahramis would drive downtown to The Little Kitchen at 3 a.m. to prepare for breakfast and lunch. Then they would head to University City for dinner service at Cafe Natasha, where they would work late into the night. It was a struggle and unsustainable. In 1995, they closed The Little Kitchen to focus on their new restaurant.
 

Cafe Natasha's Dining Room

Even though the Bahramis were already operating one successful restaurant, Cafe Natasha got off to a slow start. Then, one Wednesday, while Hamishe was sitting with  a customer at the only occupied table in her restaurant, St. Louis Post-Dispatch restaurant critic Joe Pollack walked in.

While we were talking, this couple walked in. It was a heavyset man with a skinny woman, and she had a raincoat on.

Her customer told her it was Joe Pollack and that she was going to be famous.

I said, "Who’s Joe Pollock?" He said, "You don’t know who Joe Pollock is?" I said, "No."

He also told her not to to go Pollack's table because Pollack didn't like to talk to owners.

The girl who was working for me that day had lots of experience. She said, "Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it for you."

He ordered a bunch of stuff and he ate. I had an apple pie, I made my own desserts. But the apple pie was there for three days because nobody was coming in. She served it to him before she told me.

I got so upset. I said, "Why did you serve that apple pie to him and now he’s going to write down his stuff." She said, "Don’t worry, Hamishe. This is the best apple pie he has had for a long time. Don’t worry. I know. I’ve worked at restaurants."

Hamishe's customer told her if Pollack returned on Friday, it meant he liked her food.

He came back on Friday. It kind of made me happy. That day we had chops. It was the first time we had chops ― lamb chops. And the sauce we made was unique. We served that to him.

He ate a bunch of stuff. He had so much food. He ate and he laughed. He didn’t say thank you. He didn’t smile. He didn’t talk to me.

Hamishe Bahrami, Cafe Natasha

Pollack's review appeared in the newspaper the following Thursday, on April 8, 1993.

Latest in the University City Loop is Cafe Natasha, which is one of the best bargains to be found in recent years ― a three-course dinner, including an elegant entree, is $10.50.

They serve, according to the menu, "definitive cuisine with a Persian flair," and they do it with style. Service is good, and the personnel is happy to explain the Persian dishes.

The menu at Natasha is small ― entrees include three styles of beef, one superlative lamb and one chicken, all grilled, plus baked codfish and a vegetarian meal. Pita bread, delicious Persian tea, Bulgarian feta cheese and some spicy greens of the season (fresh cilantro, parsley, green onions and radishes) arrive as the first course, and the second is either a more traditional salad or a tangy, delicious lentil soup known as "Osh."

All entrees are accompanied by either white basmati rice or herbed rice, and the Natasha rice is wonderful, with its own rich flavor and beautiful, individual kernels that come out as individual as snowflakes.

The lamb at Natasha was superlative, perhaps the best lamb I've ever eaten in a St. Louis restaurant. Marinated and well-rubbed with spices, including hints of cumin and cilantro, the loin-cut lamb was tender and delicious, with all the rich flavor that well-prepared lamb can bring.

Chicken was almost as good, arriving in juicy and extremely tasty chunks, the edges grilled nicely. The baked fish, sprinkled with flavored breadcrumbs, was cooked to the exact moment, with all its mild, lovely flavor coming through.

A couple of pies and a cheesecake or two are the dessert choices, and Hamishe Bahrami has a splendid touch with crust. Apple pie was outstanding ― and very American ― with a rich, buttery crust and apples of the perfect shade of tenderness.

The U. City Loop has grown into the finest ethnic-dining area in the city, and Cafe Natasha is one more jewel in an already heavy crown.

The onslaught of customers began as soon as the front doors opened that day, and did not end until well after the restaurant was scheduled to close.

People stayed in line until 11 p.m. And for a month we had that kind of line. It didn’t go well. We didn’t have servers. We didn’t have enough kitchen help. It was really a disaster that day.

Still, patrons returned, with the knowledge that the lamb chops and apple pie were worth whatever wait they would have to endure.
 

Behshid Bahrami, Cafe Natasha

Cafe Natasha continued to get rave reviews for their Persian cuisine. By 1999, Hamishe Bahrami was doing much of the cooking.

Persian cuisine is delicious. It's very healthy, with no fat, no grease and no preservatives. Nothing is deep-fried. Many of the dishes are kabobs, which my husband broils on an open grill. I do the rest of the cooking.

2001 Cafe Natasha Menu (click image to enlarge)

One of Cafe Natasha's signature dishes was their Osh, a thick soup made with lentils and barley and various spices. The recipe was close to the hearts of Hamishe and her family, and one they did not share.

When we were downtown, on Fridays, we made a soup called Osh. We had beef or chicken broth in it and so vegetarians couldn’t eat it. So we started making it with butter and spices instead. And then vegan people asked why there was butter in it, so now I just make it seasoned with only spices ― no flavor from butter or stock. It's as good, if not better, because you know you're eating healthy food. It's thick, made with lentils and barley, and smells good and tastes good. Great for wintertime, but I love eating it all year round.

Cafe Natasha's Osh

Marinated and charbroiled lamb chops and kabobs were another Cafe Natasha specialty ― the marinade was the restaurant's signature flavor. Originally developed as a marinade for beef, Behshid Bahrami began using it on lamb to counter its gamey taste.

Lamb just tastes different in the United States. It's gamey, nothing like Persian lamb.

Cafe Natasha's Marinated Lamb Chops

In late 2001, the Bahramis opened another restaurant on South Grand. By then, their daughter Natasha was eighteen and working at the restaurant on Delmar.

Dad had a crazy idea to open something called Kabob International on South Grand. He was tired of people telling him that Cafe Natasha wasn’t authentic Persian food. It was very much Persian food. He wanted to add flavor to the food, so he had his own marinades. He got frustrated and decided to open another restaurant where he wouldn’t be stuck within the confines of something called Persian cuisine.

Kabob International was located in a corner storefront at Wyoming and South Grand, a few blocks south of Tower Grove Park. Its decor was more casual than the restaurant on Delmar. Photos of Iran, India, Cambodia and Malaysia decorated the walls. A large patio provided outdoor seating in warm weather.

Kabob International's menu pledged, "We won't offer anything unless it is wonderful." The initial menu featured meat sandwiches, vegetarian sandwiches, rice platters with meat or legumes, salads, soup and desserts. Lamb, beef and chicken were prepared as kabobs, gyros, shawarma or koubideh.

In January of 2004, the Bahramis closed their restaurant in the University City Loop and merged it with their South Grand restaurant. The new union was officially dubbed Cafe Natasha's Kabob International ― commonly, it was still called Cafe Natasha.
 

Cafe Natasha's Kabob International, 3200 South Grand

Cafe Natasha's Kabob International Dining Room

The Cafe Natasha menu was integrated into the Kabob International menu. An ad in the January 26, 2004 St. Louis Post-Dispatch announced:

The loyal U-City customers will find their favorite dishes there as well and surely they will discover many new favorites such as outstanding falafel, succulent Tandouri chicken, tasty homemade gyros and many more international classics that have been successfully established in the past 2 years.

A favorite on the new menu was the beef tongue. Thin slices of beef were served in a
buttery broth with a curry mustard sauce on the side.
 

Cafe Natasha's Beef Tongue

2006 Cafe Natasha's Kabob International Menu (click image to enlarge)

With the closing of Cafe Natasha in University City, Natasha Bahrami got her life back. She finished her undergraduate degree at St. Louis University and went on to get a master of arts degree in international relations at Webster University.

While Natasha had grown up with her parents in their restaurants, she had also grown up with her parents' customers watching over her.

They saw my life. They saw me grow up. I finished my undergrad degree. Congratulations! They wanted to come to my graduation. Then I went and got a graduate degree. Guests would watch me grow up and like, what are you doing next?

I worked in every walk of life that I wanted to, to prove myself. I moved to Spain. I moved to Lebanon. I moved to New York. I moved to DC. And every time it was, what are you doing next? It gave me a little complex.

In Washington, DC, Natasha found jobs in international policy and IT. On weekends, she worked in the hospitality industry. She had developed an interest in gin, and began establishing gin programs at the restaurants where she worked, eventually securing a job at the city’s premier gin bar, The Gin Joint.

Hamishe Bahrami was concerned about her daughter's lifestyle.

She was working weekends at bars, and she would go home at 3 a.m. I was worried about her going home alone at that time of night.

I said, what is it you like to do? Your working for other people until 3 a.m. Do you want to have a bar? I have a bar. You can come home and be your own boss. I promised her if she came home, I would give her my one hundred percent support.

Natasha returned to St. Louis in 2013.

She gave me permission to stop doing what everybody else thought I should be doing. She said you have to live your own life and do what you want to do. It was amazing. It lifted a whole thing off of my shoulders. And it was the beginning of the Gin Room.

Hamishe and Behshid Bahrami renovated their restaurant and, with Natasha's help, converted the front bar room into an homage to gin.

We opened the Gin Room and we doubled everything that we’d ever done. We’d never seen these numbers. And mom and dad could take a break. They weren’t worried about money anymore.

Gin Room Sign

Gin Room Bar, 2013

Cafe Natasha's Renovated Dining Room, 2013

The 2013 renovation marked an anniversary for the Bahramis. It had been 30 years since they had opened The Little Kitchen in downtown St. Louis. It also marked a change in leadership, as mom and dad turned over management of their restaurant to Natasha.
 

Behshid, Natasha and Hamishe Bahrami, 2013

Natasha didn't make many changes to the menu, although she did mix in a few new items. The pomegranate eggplant appetizer was inspired by flavors she had discovered while studying in Lebanon. The eggplant was grilled and then roasted, giving it a deep smokiness. Charred tomatoes, garlic juice and chickpeas were added, plus a pomegranate molasses drizzle for tartness.
 

Cafe Natasha's Pomegranate Eggplant

While lamb chops had made the restaurant famous, the lamb biryani was a popular dish on the menu. The braised lamb was shredded and served over cumin and chickpea spiked basmati rice.
 

Cafe Natasha's Lamb Biryani

2013 Cafe Natasha's Menu (click image to enlarge)

Behshid Bahrami retired not long after his daughter took over management of Cafe Natasha. But his presence as a force for culinary greatness did not change, even as he stepped away from the kitchen and turned the cooking over to his wife. He still tasted dishes at the restaurant to ensure the food was up to his standards.

He was a constant fixture in the restaurant's dining room, always more than willing to share his thoughts on what constituted truly great food. His palate was unparalleled. He could deconstruct a dish from memory, breaking down where it succeeded and where it fell short.

Bahrami wasn't afraid to tell people the truth about their cooking. Many of the city's restaurateurs and chefs were the object of his critiques, and he could be blunt. "This soup, it has no flavor," he once told a prominent restaurant owner. But he held himself and his family to these standards as well.

Behshid Bahrami died unexpectedly on December 13, 2016 at the age of 74.
 

Behshid Bahrami

On September 24, 2019, Cafe Natasha hosted a special dinner to celebrate their 35th anniversary. Hamishe Bahrami was still in the kitchen.

I'm going to make people's favorite dishes from downtown and dishes that made Cafe Natasha in the Loop and here on South Grand so famous. Thirty-five years . . . it wasn't easy. We went into business because we had to, not because we loved to cook. We had to cook to survive and raise Natasha the right way. I don't know what would have happened to us if we hadn't had our business.

It tells us that we're doing something right, that after 35 years people are still supporting us. The people of St. Louis have helped me through the worst times we've had; they've supported me and I'm going to be there for them. I cook what they like and I'm going to be there for them.

Hamishe Bahrami, 2019

On April 30, 2022, after 39 years in the restaurant business, Hamishe Bahrami left her kitchen for the final time and Cafe Natasha closed its doors.

I love what I do in the kitchen, but COVID has exhausted me. I want to enjoy the last chapter of my life. I don’t want to stay in the kitchen until something forces me to leave.

Natasha Bahrami and her Gin Room stayed on as part of a new restaurant ― Italian cuisine replaced Persian dishes.

We are so excited for this new restaurant concept. The Gin Room will be front and center, and the restaurant will have synergy with it and work off of what we are doing.

Mom will still be involved; she will be in the front. She will be seating people, giving hugs. She will be the maitre d' of all time. She will be doing everything she is meant to do. She won't be stuck in the kitchen anymore.

Hamishe Bahrami saw it slightly differently.

I'll be sipping my bourbon and enjoying the guests and sharing good food with them.

Hamishe and Natasha Bahrami

You can hear Hamishe and Natasha Bahrami tell the story of Cafe Natasha in the Lost Tables Podcast Series.

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