Restaurant Review: Joon

The server makes his way through the peacock blue dining room, platter in hand, and arrives at my table beaming to present, with theatrical flair, a spit-roasted chicken. The plump bird—brined overnight and rubbed with olive oil, garlic, saffron and spices—rests majestically on a stuffing of apricots, apples and prunes, surrounded by a mahogany jus. 

After the big reveal, it’s whisked away to be carved, returning minutes later with fanned breast slices and crackly skin encircling a mound of chelow (basmati rice). The rice is crowned with the crunchy, saffron-infused, addictive crust known in Persian cooking as tahdig. Soon enough, I’m in heaven, reveling in the dish’s balance of sweetness, citrus and spice. 

Joon (a Farsi term of endearment akin to “dear”) opened in Tysons in June with a considerable pedigree. Chef consultant and co-owner Najmieh Batmanglij, a native of Tehran, fled to France in 1979 during the Iranian Revolution and settled in Washington in 1983, where she became a doyenne of Iranian culture and cuisine and a prolific cookbook author. Her works include Joon: Persian Cooking Made Simple; Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey and the seminal opus Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies. 

Co-owner and culinary director Chris Morgan also co-owns the Caribbean eatery Bammy’s in D.C.’s Navy Yard and was previously co-executive chef at Michelin-starred Maydan and its sister restaurant Compass Rose, also in the District.

Helming Joon is a homecoming of sorts for Morgan, a Langley High School alumnus who was born and raised in McLean and holds degrees from the University of North Carolina Wilmington (economics) and the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. After returning to the DMV in 2014, he took a cooking class at Batmanglij’s Georgetown home on a tip from his mother, who had attended one a couple years earlier.

“We hit it off,” Morgan says of Batmanglij. “I started helping her with the cooking classes and her cookbook recipes. She’s like a second mother to me.”

Restaurateur and Joon co-founder Reza Farahani, also a McLean resident, is the business’s primary investor. 

On the occasion of my first visit, complimentary valet parking puts me in a good mood even before I cross Joon’s threshold to find loungy seating areas outfitted with velvet sofas, marble coffee tables, backgammon sets and copies of Batmanglij’s books.

The restaurant’s midcentury décor, designed by Michelle Bove of D.C.’s DesignCase, features an entry fountain, lots of lush paneling, herringbone-patterned wood floors inlaid with turquoise tiles, floral wallpaper and modern chandeliers hanging from indigo tray ceilings.

The vast 9,700-square-foot space, which replaces Chef Geoff’s in Tysons, seats 240 in several rooms, plus 24 at a turquoise-tiled bar. (A 60-seat outdoor patio is planned.)

Settle in with a cocktail—say a Sazerac made with cognac, fig cordial and a rinse of anise-flavored aragh; or a daiquiri enhanced with Persian dried black lime. 

Joon’s lavish and complimentary bread service features house-baked lavash tucked into a dinner napkin to keep it warm. It’s served with olive and walnut spread drizzled with pomegranate molasses, whipped herb butter and a blend of goat and feta cheeses. Just be sure to save some of that bread for dipping in flavor-packed spreads such as kashk-e-bademjan (roasted eggplant with fermented yogurt) and mast-o khiar (a luscious, garlicky dip made with cucumbers, walnuts, mint, tarragon and dill). 

Abundant herbs are a hallmark of Persian cooking, as in the herb kuku, a delicate, puffy frittata packed with parsley, cilantro, dill, fenugreek, spring onions and walnuts. This heavenly dish is topped with tart caramelized barberries (similar to tiny, dried cranberries) and a dollop of minty yogurt dip.

Other items not to be missed include Batmanglij’s signature meatballs, a harmonic combination of earthy ground lamb and crunchy pistachios in a sweet-tart pomegranate reduction. 

A thick pistachio potage emboldened with cumin, coriander, ginger, sour orange and grape molasses is comfort in a bowl. This soup is a hearty choice as we head into cold weather, and a better option than the chilled mint and yogurt soup I tried, which had an acrid, acidic finish and seemed to have soured.

Morgan offers a variety of kebabs, all served with grilled tomatoes, onions and peppers, plus a hefty portion of chelow with tahdig. I’m a fan of all three of the skewers I tried—large, head-on prawns; Cornish hen; and four thick lamb rib chops—each one redolent with perfume-y notes. What makes the kebabs stand out, aside from careful cooking to ward off dryness, are the chef’s tenderizing yogurt-based marinades imbued with lime, saffron, butter, coriander and honey. (Rose water and orange zest also enhance the chops.) 

I have to give Morgan credit for taking on the challenge of chelow with tahdig. It’s not easy to pull off that crunchy topping—especially in a high-volume restaurant—because making it is both tricky and time-consuming. I learned how to prepare it years ago in a Batmanglij class, and it always inspires gasps at dinner parties.

The execution was inconsistent on my visits (at times, the top was rubbery), but Morgan claims he’s now perfected it, having purchased the specialized molds that are needed to make it. 

“The rice has been the hardest thing to get right,” he says. “We have a whole table laid out with them in the back. They take 13 minutes to bake, so we keep making five or six at a time throughout service.”  

Joon’s menu also features several large-format dishes meant for sharing, among them the aforementioned (and utterly delicious) whole rotisserie chicken. Other options include whole roasted branzino; whole, dry-aged roasted duck; lamb shoulder; and an assorted kebab platter for six to eight people that ranges in price from $65 (chicken) to $190 (lamb). Platters come with rice in the form of chelow (accompanying kebabs), sour cherry with tahdig (duck) or speckled with dill and fava beans (lamb, branzino, whole chicken).

For another noteworthy entrée—fesenjoon—Morgan cures and sears duck legs, then braises them with walnuts, cinnamon, turmeric and Persian hogweed. The braising liquid is subsequently pureed into a thick, dreamy sauce that’s draped over the duck with a flourish of pomegranate seeds.  

Less successful is a dry (and not optimally fresh) pan-seared barramundi in a tamarind and fenugreek-laced sauce.

I am partial to many trademark ingredients of Persian cooking—roses, saffron, warm spices, pistachios, walnuts, pomegranate—so I’m particularly happy with the desserts at Joon. The aptly named Persian Love Cake is a wedge of rosewater and almond flavored yellow cake topped with a rosewater glaze and served with strawberry-barberry compote and lemon-curd whipped cream. The stunner, though, is a wonderfully tart and refreshing sour cherry sorbet with hints of cinnamon and cardamom. 

End a meal at Joon with tea service, which finds a teapot and cup presented on a gold platter with Persian saffron rock candy. It’s that kind of attention to detail that makes me leave a place with a smile—just like the one I had when I handed the valet my car key without having to take my wallet out of my pocket.

What To Drink

The cocktail list features eight cleverly crafted quaffs imbued with Persian touches, among them the Majnoon (vodka, Genepy, dry vermouth, mint, cucumber, rose petal tea and clarified labneh) and a Tehrooni Negroni, served over saffron flecked ice.

There are 36 offerings on the wine list (5 sparkling; 9 white; 4 rosé; 14 red; 4 dessert) ranging from $45 to $215, with most in the $60 neighborhood. Nineteen are offered by the glass ($12 to $18). The selections are mostly French and Californian, plus a few from Italy and Spain.

Don’t miss the nonalcoholic tap sodas ($8), which include doogh (a minty carbonated yogurt beverage); sour cherry and tarragon; and apricot.

Joon

8045 Leesburg Pike, Tysons
571-378-1390

Hours

Sunday to Thursday: 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday: 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Parking

Complimentary valet parking

Prices

Starters: $12 to $17; Entrées: $20 to $50; Rice dishes: $13 to $35; Large format platters: $65 (for whole rotisserie chicken that feeds two or three) to $190 (lamb shoulder that feeds six to eight); Desserts: $9 to $14