About Mocha Cafe and Pastry
At first glance, Fojan Taheri’s tiny cafe looks as if it would fit better in Lyon, France, than in Arlington’s Lyon Park neighborhood.
A glass case boasts a selection of pistachio and chocolate éclairs, fragrant lemon tarts, and airy mousse cakes, perfect for an afternoon sweets break alongside a cup of locally roasted coffee.
But there’s more to the menu than pastries, crepes, and croissant sandwiches. Taheri, who learned to cook from her Persian mother, offers a number of Iranian specialties, from saffron shakes to a’ash, a barley-herb soup. What we’ll keep coming back for: Persian pizza, a thin, deep-crusted pie filled with chicken, olives, mushrooms, and ample mozzarella.
This article appears in our October 2014 issue of Washingtonian.
Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
