Inside Karachi’s Disappearing Irani Cafes

Stepping into Khairabad Tea Shop, one of the few remaining Irani cafes in Karachi, Pakistan, is like walking onto a movie set from the 1960s. The chipped mosaic flooring, glass-topped tables, and whirling ceiling fans are relics from another age—until you clock the noisy clatter of teacups and customers bustling through the door for another busy lunch service. Khairabad Tea Shop may be nearly 50 years old, but it remains just as popular with hungry Karachiites in search of a refreshing chai.

I became familiar with the existence of Irani cafes in the Indian subcontinent when I visited Dishoom soon after it opened its first site in London’s Covent Garden in 2010. Dishoom pays homage to the Irani cafes in Bombay established by Zoroastrian immigrants, a religious minority from Iran whose descendants came to be known as Parsis.

Similar to Bombay, Karachi is also a city of migrants and has a prominent albeit dwindling Parsi community who settled there instead of making their way onwards to Bombay. The early Irani cafes in Karachi were set up predominantly by these Zoroastrian settlers, who fled religious persecution in Iran in the early 1900s. Serving quality food on a budget, they became popular in the 1960s and ’70s as the social hub for student activists, journalists, and self-proclaimed Marxists. They were also seen as inclusive spaces where the religious boundaries and societal divisions that had shaped the creation of Pakistan were blurred—even if momentarily.

Until the 1970s, Karachi had more than a hundred Irani restaurants but today, only a handful remain. I set out to explore the evolution and subsequent decline of Irani cafes by visiting three of the remaining ones in Karachi.

Khairabad Tea House is perhaps the most well-known Irani cafe, located strategically at the edge of I.I Chundrigar Road—the Fleet Street of Karachi. Owner Haji Abbas Ali traces his roots to the Yazd province in Iran, where his great-grandfather ran a business trading with the Indian subcontinent. However, unlike earlier Irani settlers who were Parsi, Ali’s family is Muslim.

“In 1932, my grandfather made a stopover in Karachi during a business trip and decided to settle here,” Ali tells me. “Initially, he set up a modest tea shop named Khairabad, which is the name of our village in Iran.”

In 1973, Ali took over the family business and expanded into food service. A hand-painted Urdu sign on a glass cabinet indicates that the Persian specialty of chullo mahi (rice and grilled fish platter) is on offer. I glance at the English menu beneath the glass tabletop and also see a range of traditional Pakistani and Indo-Chinese dishes. Noting my confusion, Ali explains, “We are simply responding to demand as we need to cater to all tastes. Who will eat just Persian food?”

Over a cup of doodh patti chai, Ali reflects on why he thinks Irani cafes are disappearing.

“We are a small and shrinking community. As there are more opportunities in Iran than in Pakistan, there is no new wave of migration. Also, the restaurant business especially in the face of rising gas and food prices, is incredibly tough. My children are unlikely to carry forward this business once my generation fades out.”

Cafe Durakhshan, another Irani cafe set up in the 60s, is located at the intersection of two of the busiest roads in Saddar, Karachi’s commercial district. When I visit at lunchtime, it is buzzing with young office-goers working in the vicinity. The cafe retains signature features of Irani cafes, such as Bentwood chairs and an ornate staircase. The elderly owner Mohammed Mehdi, who also traces his ancestry to Yazd in Iran, tells me that Cafe Durakhshan was set up in the 1960s by a Parsi man, from whom Mehdi bought the business. He notes that very few of the remaining Irani cafes are still owned by Parsis.

“The original owners have all passed away. Karachi’s security troubles drove their children to sell their businesses and migrate to Canada and the USA,” says Mehdi.

While Mehdi’s sons are involved in business operations, he laments that this is not the reality for other Irani cafes in the city. “Our later generations are becoming doctors and lawyers. They are not going to run restaurants. I worry that in 15 to 20 years, even the few remaining Irani cafes may not be around.”

A 15-minute walk away from Cafe Durakhshan is Chullu Kabab Sistani Restaurant. The manager Naeem Ahmed tells me that the owner is from Sistan in Iran, and the restaurant has been in operation since 1960. He insists I try their specialty chullu kabab makhsoosi: steamed white and saffron rice and grilled tomatoes topped with a slab of butter that melts into the tender beef kebabs and barbecue chicken cubes nestled under the rice.

Naeem identifies two key factors for why Irani cafes are struggling: “Real estate is expensive in this area, so the cost of running the restaurant is prohibitively high. Furthermore, demand for Persian food is declining because it is not spicy and Pakistanis don’t have much of a taste for it. We have had to add more Pakistani dishes to our menu so we don’t lose customers.”

I can’t help but think that the dying breed of Irani cafes are symbolic of how the “old” Karachi has also faded. Public spaces that were inclusive and cultivated progressive political dialogue and intellectual discourse have gradually been replaced by a burgeoning material culture of expensive shopping malls and fast food chains.

As Abbas says proudly, “Where else in this city would you find the editor of a leading daily newspaper eating alongside a vendor from the shop next door? Only in an Irani cafe.”