Persia in a baguette – the shops bringing Tehran subs to London

Away from the grilled meats, aubergine stews and rice of the Iranian kitchen, snackers can plump for the ‘sandveech’ – Tehran subs from sandwich joints that put certain chains to shame

Comfort food: Richard Ratcliffe, whose wife Nazanin is in jail in Iran, and owner Ali Tabatabai at Caspian Lounge. ‘Nazanin was always very proud of Iranian food,’ Richard says, ‘all Iranians are’

My nephew is hungry and I’m keen to spare him the fish fingers his au pair has prepared so we drive to an Iranian sub bar.

For the past few years I’ve heard about these from recently arrived Iranians but I’ve never been to one. Caspian in London’s West Ealing is just around the corner.

After a long wait, I am handed two unglamorous paper bags containing our subs. They are warm and feel loaded. Nephew rips one open.

His face lights up – a huge wedge of kookoo sabzi bulges out of the bread.

It’s a frittata of sorts, with a moist, delicate balance of herbs, lightly fried, creating a thin coat that gives its mushy, oddly green-tasting and garlicky, insides a smoked flavour. It’s a thumbs-up from nephew and, at £5.50, is a snip.

With Nowruz – the 13-day Iranian new year celebration that kicked off at the spring equinox on 20 March – drawing to a close, it makes sense to invite a guest to share my discovery of the Persian sub and who better than Richard Ratcliffe? Ratcliffe’s wife Nazanin is in jail in Iran, arrested on 2 April 2016 and handed a five-year sentence for… for… well, we don’t really know what for, only that the British Government refuses to the take Tehran to task because she is a dual national.

Ratcliffe and I meet at another sub shop, Caspian Lounge, in Finchley, north London (“Caspian” is the first name Iranian shop-owners in the UK think of).

He and the family-and-friend volunteers of the #FreeNazanin campaign are keen to make sure her case remains “Iran’s probem” – while his mother-in-law in Tehran is looking after the couple’s baby daughter, Gabriella.

Richard talks to Gabriella on Skype but she has now “lost her English and talks gibberish as English”.

Gabriella’s favourite food is ghormeh sabzi, he says – possibly the most popular of Persian stews, with freshly chopped fenugreek, coriander, parsley, kidney beans and dried limes that go squidgy.

“Nazanin was always very proud of Iranian food,” says Richard, “all Iranians are.”

There is no sense of Ratcliffe resenting the culture Nazanin is from and that now incarcerates her – that’s because he knows there is no such culture. He is very conscious of not framing her plight through “Orientalist” goggles.

He has visited Iran four times with Nazanin. The biggest complication they faced when they last went in 2015 was that he was vegetarian.

“Her poor grandmother wanted to host,” he says. “Everyone was having kebabs and then I get a plate of rice with everything she could think of from the back of the cupboard that will make some sauce.”

He was charmed by the “gently competitive hospitality” of Nazanin’s friends and relatives.

“It’s a little cultural difference,” he says, “in that it is really important as a mark of home to be able to host all your family and your friends.”

(Hospitality, though, has its limits. Since Nazanin’s capture, says Richard, some of her Iranian friends have been “concerned, deeply caring but wouldn’t dare sign the petition” he has started.)

He and Nazanin visited vegetarian restaurants together; his favourite meal, lentil rice – this is often drizzled with lightly fried raisins or dates.

“It’s simple, it’s nice, with some pickles,” he says.

Pizza arrives for an elderly Polish man and a young lad sitting with him. In the corner, a Polish woman who exchanges a few words with them is tucking in to a burger – this place has the rather incongruous claim of making the “best in town”.

No brainer: lamb’s brain and chicken sandwich at Caspian Lounge

Their pizza looks dazzling and is chopped into squares.

“The flour is from Iran,” says Ali, the owner, who has greeted us with a smile.

A meat feast with smoked beef sausage from an Iranian supplier in Germany, its base is perfect, light and crispy, chopped into squares rather than slices; the cheese is fresh, light bouncy and it tastes gorgeous – a total show-stealer.

Richard’s ordered a baguette of smoked beef sausage and kalbas – Persian mortadella.

He is not too keen on the lamb’s brain and chicken that I’ve ordered but promises to try some (when he does, he soon forgets about the brain element – it’s just a creamy complement to the lemony chicken).

But hold on, isn’t he a veggie?

“I was quite ill last spring with pneumonia,” he explains. “So I’d promised Nazanin that I would eat meat for a month after hospital to recover and in fact the deal was I would eat meat until she came back from Iran. Which of course was a year ago, so I’ve kept that promise.

“It’s the Iranian mentality – ‘to be strong you need to eat meat and none of this vegetarian nonsense’. Absolutely convinced that if you eat meat you’ll be safe.”

Meat, he says, was welcome fuel in the early stages of campaigning.

For him, Nazanin’s case is simple. It’s got nothing to do with “them” and how “they” do things – they are not even following Iranian law. “It’s about justice. It’s about abuse and injustice. Everyone else wants to be the carrot. You are the only one that will be the stick.”

Ratcliffe remains baffled that the Government will not criticise her detention. “That is simply incredible.”

As we leave, Ali, the restaurant owner belatedly recognises his diner.

“Isn’t that the guy who… I’m sorry,” he says, bowing his head toward Ratcliffe.

Ali looks sad.

Despite his good English, Ali asks me in Persian: “Tell this gentleman justice will prevail, the innocent will shine through.”

Richard takes the remaining pizza and I take the untouched kotlet sandwich (“Nazanin’s favourite”) – lamb and potato cutlets slapped in breadcrumbs and lightly fried – for my nephew.