Rumi Room will begin a new chapter Friday, when the Persian and Indo-Pak restaurant officially opens its new location at The Bend in southwest Las Vegas.
The restaurant has moved from its original home at Evora to the former St. Felix space at the growing mixed-use development near Sunset Road and Durango Drive. For co-owner and Executive Chef Mamad Nafissi, the move is largely about giving more people a chance to discover the restaurant — and giving existing customers more room to use it.
Rumi Room combines two culinary traditions under one roof: Persian cuisine and Indo-Pak food, the latter reflecting the Pakistani heritage of Nafissi’s business partner, Dr. Ali Haq.
“Technically, you’re going to two restaurants in one,” Nafissi told the Food and Loathing podcast. “We have a Persian side, a Persian menu, and Indo-Pak, which means Indian-Pakistani food.”
The restaurant also offers steaks and seafood, giving customers the option to stick to one cuisine or mix dishes from both sides of the menu.
A friends-and-family menu offered ahead of Friday’s opening previewed what diners can expect. Persian offerings included barg — thinly sliced filet mignon that’s marinated and charbroiled — and koobideh kabob, while the Indo-Pak selections included chicken tandoori, chicken tikka masala and goat karahi. Starters included hummus, yogurt and cucumber, baba ghanoush and vegetable samosas.
The new location also gives Rumi Room something Evora really wasn’t providing: more foot traffic.
Nafissi says he was originally attracted to Evora by ambitious plans for the mixed-use community. But as development failed to progress as quickly or extensively as expected, Rumi Room found itself with limited opportunities to grow.
“We were counting on the entire development to be developed,” he says, explaining that slow growth within the complex “did not allow us to grow beyond where we were.”
There was another problem. Rumi Room had developed a following among doctors and others in the medical industry, in part through Haq’s connections. Nafissi says those customers frequently wanted to hold events that the restaurant couldn’t accommodate in its former space.
The opportunity at The Bend came after Nafissi reached out to developer J. Dapper and his team about the former St. Felix location. Nafissi says Dapper representatives visited Rumi Room, tried the food and encouraged the restaurant to make the move.
The Bend, meanwhile, gives the restaurant considerably more visibility.
“Walk-in is immense,” Nafissi says. “People are walking in front of our place. Over there, we don’t have that foot traffic. Here, it’s a shopping center. It’s a real service shopping center.”
And while Rumi Room may have a new home, Nafissi says the concept remains centered on introducing diners to the cultures behind the food.
The restaurant takes its name from Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet and mystic whose work is still read around the world.
“We thought Rumi would be a great name to represent the food that we’re bringing to Vegas,” Nafissi says.
Hear the entire pre-opening interview with Nafissi on the October 9 episode of the Food and Loathing podcast.
