At new restaurant Pardeh in Bethnal Green everything starts with Persian hospitality

Where one door closes, another opens. And as chef Gabriel Waterhouse prepares to resurrect his former Water House Project restaurant in another Bethnal Green space, we already know what's taking over his old space. Iranian-born chef Yma Apa was behind The Drunken Butler restaurant in Clerkenwell. Now he's teamed up with restaurant owner Sahar to open Pardeh.

Talking to Hot Dinners, he said that while the restaurant's name (and inspiration) is Persian - it means curtain - the dishes won't be a faithful interpretation of Iranian food. He'll use that as a jumping-off point to which he'll also add touches and flavours inspired by his own travels and experience. If you think of what Meedu Sadhu has been doing with Impala and North African cooking, this isn't a million miles away. "The first bite should remind you of home," he says, " and then it goes all over the place."

Food at the restaurant is going to be designed for sharing. And while Pardeh moves away from the tasting menus Yma had at his former restaurant, here you can either pop in for a dish and a drink or leave the kitchen to create a menu for you. To give you an idea of what to expect, Yma cites green mango Shirazi salad, chicken with saffron, garlic and chilli, and a slow-cooked lamb shoulder with an unconventional mixture of herbs.

For Sunday roast fans, the good news is that the Sunday offering at Pardeh sounds 100% worth experiencing. Here it'll be a long, late lunch kind of affair with roasts given a Persian element, so the roast chicken might have saffron under the skin. And Yma is promising epic amounts of extra gravy to go with all of that.

Creating the wine list sounds like it's been a real labour of love, and they're working with suppliers like Passione Vino, Newcomer Wines and Les Caves de Pyrène, alongside a wider selection of smaller producers and growers. Expect everything from entry-level wines through to rare bottles from both 'icons and future icons'. They're already planning winemaker dinners as part of that.

Even the space sounds like it'll be a fun place to be. The kitchen will be open with a four seat chef's table in the heart of it and a prep table that'll become more of a hub for those happy to stand around with a glass of something good. There'll also be a semi private dining room which can also be a sharing table.