Welcome to Conflict Kitchen's first iteration, Kubideh Kitchen. Conflict Kitchen is a take-out restaurant that only serves cuisine from countries that the United States is in conflict with. The food is served out of a take-out style storefront, which will rotate identities every 4 months to highlight another country. Each Conflict Kitchen iteration will be augmented by events, performances, and discussion about the the culture, politics, and issues at stake with each county we focus on. Kubideh Kitchen is an Iranian take-out restaurant that serves kubideh in freshly baked barbari bread with onion, mint, and basil. Developed in collaboration with members of the Pittsburgh Iranian community, the sandwich is packaged in a custom-designed wrapper that includes interviews with Iranians both in Pittsburgh and Iran on subjects ranging from Iranian food and poetry to the current political turmoil.
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Conflict Kitchen is a take-out restaurant that only serves cuisine from countries that the United States is in conflict with.
Welcome to Conflict Kitchen’s first iteration, Kubideh Kitchen. Conflict Kitchen is a take-out restaurant that only serves cuisine from countries that the United States is in conflict with. The food is served out of a take-out style storefront, which will rotate identities every four months to highlight another country. Each Conflict Kitchen iteration is augmented by events, performances, and discussion about the the culture, politics, and issues at stake with each country we focus on.
Kubideh Kitchen is an Iranian take-out restaurant that serves kubideh in freshly baked barbari bread with onion, mint, and basil. Developed in collaboration with members of the Pittsburgh Iranian community, the sandwich is packaged in a custom-designed wrapper that includes interviews with Iranians both in Pittsburgh and Iran on subjects ranging from Iranian food and poetry to the current political turmoil.
Through food, wrappers, programming, and daily interactions with customers, Conflict Kitchen creates an ongoing platform for first-person discussion of international culture and politics. In addition, the project introduces a rotating venue for culinary and cultural diversity in Pittsburgh, as future iterations will focus on Afghanistan, North Korea, and Venezuela.
Conflict Kitchen is a project by John Peña, Jon Rubin, and Dawn Weleski and is funded by the Sprout Fund, The Waffle Shop, the Center for the Arts in Society, and the sale of food. Graphic design by Brett Yasko. Architectural design by Pablo Garcia of POiNT. Special thanks to Illah Nourbakhsh, Sohrab Kashani, Marti Louw, Harrison Apple, Sara Faradji, Courtney Wittekind, Jasmine Friedrich, Hilary Baribeau, Angel Gonzlaez, and all of those from the Iranian community who supplied us with their input and perceptions.
Brilliant! I love it!
Peace through full stomachs:)
That’s how it works.
Sandwich and Concept very nice…enjoyed two Saturday night..Khalee Khoob boud…merci!!
The sad part is that there’s not even anything “hip” or “edgy” about being an open traitor these days. It’s mainstream. You people are pathetic.
yeah!
sandwich traitors!
trying to bring down the US with your delicious grilled meat products!
i crush you!
hnnnngghgnnnnargh
[...] a comment Localizado em Pittsburh, nos EUA, o Conflict Kitchen traz um conceito bastante curioso para o ramo alimentício. O restaurante oferece um menu baseado [...]
Excellent concept & beautiful design… well done
What a senseless waste of tax dollars. Just one more reason to vote em all out.
you guys rock!
This is really brilliant – I love the concept behind this! When my husband and I travel, we find that food is one of the best ways to connect with people. It’s a neutral topic – everyone needs to eat – yet the conversation usually leads to other things like family, economy, politics and more. Even in countries like Uzbekistan where the United States isn’t very popular, we have been invited to share meals with complete strangers.
Best of luck with this!
It serves not as a traitorous concept, but as a way to humanize those people and the culture of a country that we would otherwise demonize along with their governments, just because ours happens to disagree with them (sometimes with good reasons). We have to remember that when we get into conflicts it is not just with “nations” …we affect the lives of millions of individual people.
Bill, no tax dollars were used to support this project
Marvellous! Over here in Old Europe, it’s no big deal to walk to your favorite Persian takeaway and grab a hot kubideh. Love the stuff! The world needs more kubideh, hands down.
I read about your place in a German newspaper. It’s a great idea! Make sure you have some vegetarian food as well and I will jump on the plane just to have a snack.
It’s a sad indictment on people and attitudes that taking an interest in another country’s food and culture leads to one being labelled ‘traitor’!!
Good on you for initiating this project and helping to open some eyes to the delicacies and intricacies of some of these hidden places. Perhaps it will lead to some understanding and appreciation of how much many foreign cultures have contributed to the development of our own.
“I think it should also serve food from Louisiana, given the U.S’s
ongoing conflict with us”
- my friend Eli said that
This is fabulous! Another reason to be proud to be from Pittsburgh! I can’t wait to see what you do next!
khoda hafez!
I learned about your restaurant through the recent feature on NPR highlighting your interesting work.
I’m sorry that I can’t come from Chicago to try one of these at your actual location, but you can be sure I will be cooking some kubidehs up on my own.
I look forward to following the next incarnation of your Kitchen. Congrats on creating such a successful and creative endeavor.
I think this is a wonderful idea, and wish I was closer to stop by and say hello! This might also interest you…. Let’s not let politicians dictate who our enemy’s are.
NEDA SARMAST: Nobody’s Enemy – The Youth Culture of Iran
http://www.wolfmanproductions.com/neda_sarmast.html
Wonderful concept. I applaud you!
I stopped for the first time this afternoon and was grateful for the tasty kubideh and provocative conversation with Jasmine and a fellow customer.
Here is a link to the full HBO films documentary “For Neda”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F48SinuEHIk
And another link to the NPR story on Kubideh Kitchen:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128172025
All the best to you,
Jeff
this is wonderful! great!
We ate here on Sunday. Great food, great concept! We’ll be back. We spent most of the day telling people about it. All were intrigued. I suspect when we return it’ll be with a bunch of people!
Nice job Kubideh Kitchen! We are looking forward to your next tasty iteration!
[...] This is perhaps the best idea I’ve heard in ages: [...]
Way cool!
Love the idea of using delicious food to educate and share perspectives between alienated countries; I’m definitely keeping this place in mind for the next time I feel like taking a break from cooking.
P.S. Is “county” in the last sentence of the first paragraph a typo for “country”?
Brilliant concept and beautiful design, you guys rock !