Nefer Nefer Nefer is a modern Persian–Levantine restaurant and cocktail bar.

The restaurant is built on memory, heritage, and hospitality. It carries the scent of spices, sparks conversation, and invites guests to a table where food is a shared experience. At Nefer, dining means pausing, sharing, and stories that travel from one plate to another. Who still remembers the legendary Cuba bar or the popular Pastor restaurant on Erottajankatu? Nefer now brings guests together to enjoy and connect in these same premises in central Helsinki. Dinners have stretched late into the night here before, and Nefer continues this tradition: it invites guests to linger, to enjoy food, music, and the martini trolley brought to the table. There is something at once familiar and entirely new about the space. The dining room carries the stories of evenings past, and Nefer has woven around them its own warm and inviting rhythm. Dim lighting, deep tones, and carefully considered details create an atmosphere where time seems to slow down. This is a place where there is no rush toward the next moment, but rather an evening allowed to unfold calmly, layer by layer. The restaurant’s flavors are layered and meant to be shared. The menu is built just as it has been in Persia and the Levant for centuries: food is a continuum, a heritage passed down from generation to generation and shaped in home kitchens. The dishes honor the way mothers and grandmothers taste, remember, and pass culture forward through food. Nefer brings this tradition to Helsinki as warmth, togetherness, and deep hospitality, where food connects people as a gesture, an invitation, and an encounter. As the Persian saying goes: “Mehman ra bar sar migozarand” – the guest is lifted above one’s head. Nefer’s menu combines the flavors of Persian and Levantine cuisine with a modern approach. The menu includes several shareable dishes and main courses inspired by the regions’ signature ingredients, such as eggplant, pomegranate, saffron, and herbs. There is a wide selection of vegetarian options, and in addition to à la carte dishes, a nine-course menu is also available. Nefer Nefer Nefer was born from a desire to bring to Helsinki something its founders themselves had been missing. The restaurant brings together the Persian heritage carried by Nina Stenros-Khoshnami and the vision of guest chef Sara Aqel, rooted in her Jordanian-Palestinian background. Aqel created Nefer’s menu together with Nina and Riku Stenros-Khoshnami. The result is a whole in which history and modern interpretation move side by side. Sara Aqel is an internationally award-winning chef whose work has gained wide recognition in the culinary world. She has received, among others, The Best Chef Awards’ One Knife Award, the Highest New Entry Award 2025, and the Tatler Asian Rising Star Award. Aqel is also known as one of the founders and the creative voice behind @dara.dining. Her work continues to shape how Levantine cuisine is seen, experienced, and understood around the world. Nefer’s beverage program completes the experience: the bar offers cocktails that make use of the same herbs and spices found in the kitchen. The restaurant’s specialty is a mobile martini trolley, designed to bring cocktails into the flow of the dinner itself. It makes guests feel truly special.

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