New Persian restaurant opening on Rainey Street

All right, welcome back. Just in time for Good Day Cooks. Chista is opening this fall on Rainey. It's going to be the first restaurant to bring Persian cuisine to downtown Austin. And joining us this morning to tell us all about it is Chef Mojdeh and Omid. Thank you for coming. And I'm really excited about this because I feel like there's not a lot of this in Austin. So I think this is awesome. So thank you. And thanks for joining us. Thank you. Sure. Thanks for having us. Yeah. Tell us about the space and then we'll dive into the menu. Yeah. Chista is kind of a first of its kind for downtown Austin. Obviously, you touched on it, the Persian restaurant, bringing some of the classics you see up here, curated by our culinary genius, Chef Mojdeh, so yeah, we're very excited. We have a fun dining room that we've built that's going to be exciting. And where are you guys located exactly? So we're downtown in Rainey Street, the revitalized Rainey. Yes. She's new. 44 East. Okay. It'll be right there. Yeah. beautiful park across the street yes and that's i like going to sit over there and like people watching eating good food so good job um chef what are you making for us today oh i'm actually we have a lot of different things which i set up for you we have from the north uh region we have a southern region from iran because um i was do i was thinking about to do something that show to all of our guests that persian food is not only about rice and kebab we have a lot of rich actually different recipe for this but today uh one of the dishes is going to be the grilled peach labneh which uh actually this is the labneh yogurt is one of the side that we have it uh we eat it with a lot of different uh dishes and i want you to help me to set this up okay no pressure i have to i have to do it okay i'm gonna okay what we have here take one of these okay and then we're going to put the peach it anywhere that you like anywhere anywhere okay just make it nice i'll try my best okay if you know me you know i'm not the best cook good perfect i love it okay you're being nice then we're going to garnish it with a little bit of the um dried mint okay like that oh you just yeah fluff fluff like this love and then roasted garlic. Okay. Yum. It smells delicious. Yeah. It is. Like this. Okay. And then we garnish it with rose petal. Please do it. Anywhere that you want. I can't even figure out. Just one. One. We're gonna. Oh. Oh. I love that. Is that okay? She's a pro. Yeah. Okay. I was like, I am having creative freedom. Very nice. Okay. And so that's it, right? That's it. And then we always got the last garnish, which is? Olive oil. I love you. Yes. Okay, this looks delicious. So this is something that people can get on the menu at the restaurant. Yes. And actually, the peach, because I want to definitely support the local business, and the peach in Austin, it's fantastic. My original recipe, which was with apricot, but I changed it because I want to support the local. You want to try it? I would love nothing more. Okay, please. What do I do? Get in there. There we go. I'm so sorry. Okay, while I try to try this, please tell us when you guys are opening, how people can come check you out, things like that. Yeah, so we're opening fall this year and our Instagram cheese to ATX. Also our website, cheese to ATX.com, a lot of the ingredients you see here, like the pomegranate and stuff we have kind of worked in through our space. So the dining room kind of reads some of the traditional Persian cultural things and these ingredients you see here. So it's a very fun atmosphere. That was delicious. That was good. And you brought other things, too, but, oh, you were going to make one more. One more, yeah. Leslie can help you with that. Leslie can help me. Okay. This is my favorite. This is the cheese stop barberry salad. And barberry is something that we have it in Iran that usually you don't have. It's kind of the sweet and tart berry. yeah and it's very nice try it just eat one just just with one this is raw but i decided to have my dressing actually with that and we use this is it good it is perfect and um basically on our cheese salad we have the gem lettuce and we're going to design it with different things definitely the blue cheese no pressure i know a little bit here a little bit here perfect i like that okay so while you guys are making that can you walk me through some of the other things we have here uh yeah so um obviously the kebabs you know very traditional persian cuisine um that uh will be on the menu but um we have this is called Akbar Jujeh that has um a really nice stew that she's made and a lot of these recipes most just had with her for generations um and bringing them I'm here at Austin, so, you know, we should feel very special. I'm an Austin native, and I don't know that we've ever had an opportunity to have this kind of food here in town. So it's exciting. So I'm excited. Austin's a food city. Yeah. So good. Especially Rainey Street. You know, it seems like it's needing something fresh and new, and here we are. Yeah. Okay, so. Okay, I want to say something about this dish because it's very, very important to me. This is lavo shack. It's something I want to connect my childhood with this dish. And also I want our guests to be curious about every dish, to connect with the server and know about Iranian culture. And this is something that as a childhood, every day when I go to school, I snack this. Okay. And it's a fruit leather. But I make it like a bow, and this is going to be the last garnish. Okay. You want to make one? Yes. Good. You have to make one? Please. Please. Tie it in a beautiful bow. Wait, this one's already tied. That one's tied. I just want to show. Yeah. I'll take this one. Magic. No. You're going to make it tight. Of course I'm going to make it. I'll keep this. This, and then we just... Yeah, put one here. Wait, you just... And one the other side. It's beautiful. I eat that part first. It feels like art. Yeah. It's beautiful. And also, it's going to make, like, our guest that... Not wear blonds. ...wants this. I'm eating, Leslie. We'll move it. And we're going to finish with the barberry vinaigrette dressing. They are good. yeah and always at the end what olive oil love love love love please try it all right well we are running a little bit out of time so leslie i'm gonna make you try it but anything else we should know about y'all before i let you go no just we're very excited to bring this to austin um and you know we want to we want to welcome everybody so come check us out check out cheese to atx.com and our instagram and um opening this fall yeah we have a very nice actually pastry we have a pastry chef making a lot of ice cream and we have a lot of nice pastry music to my ears delicious delicious can't wait to see you guys yes thank you so much make sure you guys stay with us because we will be right back