Why you should experience Shandiz in Tokyo, Japan.
Shandiz is a distinctive Persian restaurant where Shinbashi's international character, Iranian home cooking, charcoal-grilled meats and a kitchen spanning several culinary traditions create one of the area's most unusual meals.
Set along Akasaka-dori near Hibiya-dori and just steps from Shiogama Shrine, Shandiz occupies a street-level dining room between Shinbashi and Onarimon, removed from the densest drinking streets around the station. Iranian embroidery, Turkish objects and national imagery establish the restaurant's geographic focus before the food arrives, while broad tables suit the shared plates central to Persian dining. Long-grain rice, herb-heavy stews, grilled meats and yogurt preparations anchor the Iranian side of the kitchen, with Turkish and Indian cooking expanding the choices for larger groups. The result is a singular Shinbashi restaurant where Persian food receives uncommon breadth within a dining room built for exploring several regional traditions together.
What you should know about Shandiz.
Shandiz is best known for Iranian chef Navi, whose career took him through hotel kitchens in Dubai, Italy and Iran before he won an international cooking competition and brought his Persian and Turkish cooking to Shinbashi. Shandiz opened on October 29, 2022 after the former Sakura Shinbashi Indian restaurant was rebuilt around a broader culinary program, retaining an Indian chef from the earlier operation while Navi assumed responsibility for Persian and Turkish dishes. The relaunch added Persian, Turkish and Italian cooking to Sakura's established Indian repertoire, creating an unusual kitchen divided across distinct professional backgrounds. Navi drew his cooking from years spent working across three countries, and his competition victory became prominent enough to appear on Shandiz signage soon after opening. Persian khoresh, kebabs and rice preparations became the principal additions under Navi, while the retained Indian chef continued producing curries from the restaurant's previous chapter. Navi remained at Shandiz in 2025, still presenting himself as the competition-winning cook behind its Persian and Turkish specialties more than two years after the restaurant's reinvention.
Chelo kebab kubide brings seasoned minced meat from the grill alongside long-grain rice, charred tomato and fresh herbs, with shallot yogurt providing a cool, tangy counterpoint to the meat. Khoresh bademjan takes a slower route through Persian cooking, combining chunks of meat with eggplant and tomato until the vegetables absorb the stew, while yellow-tinted grains running through the rice introduce the saffron-associated color central to Persian presentation. Celery-and-lamb stew shifts toward herbs and vegetables, and dried Iranian barberries contribute concentrated sweet-tart flashes when paired with chicken and rice. Dolmeh, yogurt preparations and baklava extend the table through stuffed vine leaves, cultured dairy and syrupy pastry, making kebab and khoresh the strongest starting pair before moving outward through the restaurant's wider Persian repertoire.
How to fold Shandiz into your trip.
Shandiz works as the meal within an afternoon tracing the Shinbashi-Onarimon corridor through Tokugawa patronage, Japan's first railway and the beginnings of national broadcasting.
Begin at Atago Shrine, founded on Tokugawa Ieyasu's order in 1603 as a fire-protection shrine atop 26-meter Atagoyama, where the steep staircase became associated with Marugame samurai Magaki Heikuro after his celebrated horseback ascent before shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu. Continue to Old Shimbashi Station, where Japan's first railway departed for Yokohama in 1872 under a project engineered with British specialist Edmund Morel; excavations begun in 1991 uncovered original foundations and platforms, and the reconstructed station opened on the historic site in 2003. Conclude at NHK Museum of Broadcasting, opened on Atagoyama in 1956 as the world's first museum devoted to broadcasting, preserving equipment and programs across Japan's progression from radio into television, satellite transmission, high-definition systems and digital broadcasting. The sequence moves from Ieyasu's seventeenth-century fire-protection shrine through the Meiji government's railway breakthrough into the hill where Japanese broadcasting took root, giving Shandiz a richly layered Shinbashi setting for Navi's own journey through Iran, Dubai, Italy and Tokyo.
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