While the menu is part Italian and part Persian at Italiamo Kitchen, a counter-service restaurant that opened in Derwood in December, its bestseller is the solo item that’s a fusion of Mexican and Persian fare: a tahdig taco. “Once you taste it, you’re going to love it,” I overhear co-owner Matt Mahjoub telling a diner, referring to the dish that lured me there in the first place, thanks to Instagram. He’s right, I thought, as I devoured mine, a shell of crisp flour tortilla on the outside and crunchy rice on the inside stuffed with succulent grilled chicken and a lemony cucumber, tomato and onion salad. Tahdig is the browned, crunchy layer of rice at the bottom of the pan of Persian saffron-infused rice (sometimes bread or potatoes from the bottom layer). The tahdig taco ($10) is also available with Persian spiced ground beef (koobideh) or salmon. Slather any version with the cucumber, yogurt and jalapeno chutney served on the side.
Mahjoub, 46, is a Bethesda resident who was born in London and lived in Iran from ages 4 to 12, when his family moved to Montgomery County. Mahjoub went to Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda and was in the U.S. Army Reserve for eight years. He fell into the restaurant business in 2010, helping a friend who had a kabob joint in Tysons Corner, Virginia. They partnered on a venture in Rockville in 2012; when the friend dropped out of the partnership eight months in, Mahjoub changed the name to Matt’s House of Kabob. That spot, and two other locations, closed by 2018. A Gaithersburg location he opened in 2019 didn’t make it through the pandemic. He partnered on Italiamo Kitchen with Raffie Kehyaian, the contractor who built out the space, which seats 26. They recently acquired the space next door, which will double the restaurant’s size to 3,000 square feet and add an additional 60 seats. They expect the expansion and the approval of a beer and wine license to occur in early spring.
Mahjoub borrowed the tahdig taco idea from a food truck he visited in Los Angeles; that inspired the idea of offering two cuisines at Italiamo Kitchen. “It was originally going to be just Italian food, but I’m known for Persian food, so I do both,” Mahjoub says. Persian dishes—kashkebademjoon (eggplant dip with caramelized onions, $8), kabobs ($14 to $28) and terrific ghormeh sabzi (a fenugreek-laced beef, herb and kidney bean stew, $15)—coexist with Italian meatballs in marinara sauce ($12), penne alla vodka ($20), pizzas ($10 to $14 for 10-inch; $15 to $21 for 16-inch) and eggplant parm sandwiches ($14).
Economics figured into the dual cuisine idea, too. “The profit from pasta and pizza is 35%, but only 9 or 10% from kabobs,” Mahjoub says. “Plus, how often do people eat kabobs? Pizza and pasta, they eat all the time.”
This appears in the March/April 2025 issue of Bethesda Magazine.
