The First Kurdish Restaurant in the US is Right Here in Minnesota

All across Minnesota and the US we have such a wide variety of restaurants and types of cuisine that we're exposed to. Thanks to all of the different people who have immigrated here over the years you can get authentic Mexican cuisine on one corner and delicious Greek food on the next.

I love trying out different types of food from all over the world and I like to think my knowledge of different cuisines is pretty diverse. But there's one cuisine that I had never heard of before until I happened upon it just yesterday.

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Who Are the Kurds / Kurdish People?

Have you ever heard of the Kurdish people? It was a word I was totally unfamiliar with until I did some research.

Britannica writes that Kurdish people, or Kurds, are "any member of an ethnic and linguistic group concentrated in the Taurus Mountains of southeastern Anatolia, the Zagros Mountains of western Iran, portions of northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, and western Armenia, and other, adjacent areas."

Most often you can find Kurds "in contiguous areas of Iran, Iraq, and Turkey". That area is sometimes referred to as Kurdistan.

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What is Kurdish Food?

As for the food that the Kurds typically eat, The Kurdish Project writes that "common foods include dolma (vegetables stuffed in grape leaves), kofta (spiced meatballs or meatloaf), flatbreads, honey and black tea." They also eat a lot of lamb, chicken, vegetables, pilaf, and dairy products.

In Minnesota, we can try authentic Kurdish food for ourselves at a restaurant called Babani's.

Minnesota's Kurdish Restaurant

A man named Jamal, who is Kurdish, grew up in a tribe called the Babani tribe. Jamal, when he was old enough, decided to leave his tribe for America. He eventually arrived in Minnesota and met this lovely woman named Gail.

Long story short, Jamal and Gail fell in love, got married, and opened the restaurant Babani's in 1997. It can be found in St. Paul and it was the first Kurdish restaurant in the entire country.

It appears the original Babani's may be no longer but their Babani's 2 location is still standing strong in St. Paul.

On their website they say, "Babani’s dishes represent food from the Kurdish cuisine of Kurdistan Region of Iraq, or what we Kurds call it 'Southern Kurdistan.'"

You know who really should visit this place? Guy Fieri! He's visited tons of other Minnesota restaurants.