Dirty Linen - A Food Podcast with Dani Valent · A Deep in the Weeds Production

Khash Kohan (Kitchen 55, Melbourne) - sharing generous hospitality

·45 min·3 clips

Kash says he would "get executed at least 100 times a year" if he lived in Iran now.

1. Dirty Linen with Dani Valent focuses on Kitchen 55 and Kash Kohan's Persian food story in Melbourne. 2. Dani Valent hosts Kash Kohan, who is part of Kitchen 55 and explains why the restaurant matters. 3. The episode asks what Persian hospitality looks like when traditional home dishes are served in a restaurant setting. 4. Kash says Kitchen 55 was "not supposed to be a restaurant" and calls it an "accidental restaurant." 5. He explains that guests are greeted by him, his brother, or other team members and then usually fed from a small set of daily options. 6. The kitchen usually offers "two to three mains per day," with the menu changing every day for three weeks. 7. Kash says the dishes are "very traditional Persian dishes" that are difficult to commercialize. 8. He says even in Iran it is rare to find a restaurant serving these dishes, and he says New York is no exception. 9. Dani describes Kitchen 55 as serving dishes "your mother would make or your aunt would make." 10. Kash says the restaurant feels more like being welcomed into a home than entering a standard dining room. 11. Kash traces the food to north Iran, especially Rasht, and says his family comes from that region. 12. He explains that the north is separated by mountains and has its own cuisine because vegetables and fruit, especially pomegranates, taste different there. 13. He says every Saturday the menu is entirely from north Iran. 14. Kash recalls Persian New Year trips to Rasht and family cooking in Tehran as the source of those recipes. 15. He names bora de ratoch, a dish of white beans, butter, dill, and egg, and says it took his mother months to match the bean texture in Australia. 16. He also describes babish sahab, made with beef, tomato, onion, and pomegranate sauce, and says the two dishes are meant to be mixed together. 17. Kash says tahdig is the crunchy golden bottom of the pot and that Saturday service can involve six to nine rice pots timed at once. 18. He then shifts to Iran, saying the country has been a dictatorship for 47 years and that protests, arrests, and executions shape daily life. 19. Dani's interview style is warm, reflective, and direct, with space for food detail and extended political testimony. 20. Listeners interested in Persian cuisine, migration, and Iranian politics will get the most from it.

As heard by us

A rice dish, a restaurant, and a conversation that keeps widening into care, memory, and pressure.

Dirty Linen follows Khash into Kitchen 55 and treats Iranian cooking as a practical problem, not a mood. Dani Vallant keeps the talk close to the stove, so tadig, timing, and the family rhythm around the pots stay concrete instead of drifting into theory.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want a food chat that reaches past the plate.

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