Zereshk polo ba morgh: barberry rice with chicken in Interlaken

Bright yellow saffron rice, small red berries, a few green pistachios: zereshk polo ba morgh looks like a festive plate and tastes like one too. The name tells you what’s in it: zereshk means barberries, polo is a Persian rice dish and morgh means chicken. At BANOO on Centralstrasse 28 in Interlaken it is No. 26 on our menu. Here is what makes it special.

Barberries: small, red and sour

Barberries are small dried red berries with a sharp, sour taste. In Persian cooking they are often warmed briefly in a little butter with a pinch of sugar, so they soften and caramelise slightly but keep their tang. With mild rice and chicken, that gives a nice balance of sweet, sour and buttery.

Saffron and Persian rice

In Iran, rice is traditionally boiled briefly, drained and then steamed slowly, so every grain stays light and separate. For the golden colour, saffron is dissolved in a little hot water and poured over part of the rice. We cook our rice with butter, and on the plate white and golden saffron basmati rice come together.

How we serve zereshk polo ba morgh at BANOO

Juicy chicken on a nest of fragrant saffron basmati rice, finished with caramelised barberries, saffron and pistachios. Our tip: get a little rice, a few barberries and a piece of chicken on your fork in every bite. A spoonful of cucumber yoghurt from our starters goes well with it. All our meat is halal. We do not use alcohol in our cooking.

If you’d rather have something from the grill, try our kubideh. If you like stews, ghormeh sabzi is a classic. Our menu has more rice dishes too, such as baghali polo ba mahicheh with dill rice, or loobia polo.

Persian food in the centre of Interlaken

BANOO is the only Persian restaurant in the Canton of Bern. You’ll find us at Centralstrasse 28, 2 minutes on foot from Höheweg and Interlaken West station. With 100 seats we have room for families, groups and walk-ins, and our menu has plenty of vegetarian dishes. Our sister restaurant is Banoo in Rapperswil.

We are open Tuesday to Sunday, 12:00–22:00, and closed on Mondays. Book a table online at https://pos.banoo-interlaken.ch/book/1 or call us on 076 500 71 42. We look forward to welcoming you.