Hami Sharafi
On a mission to give Persian food its rightful place at the world's table.
The chef behind I got it from my Maman.
I didn't come to this by accident.
And I didn't come to it alone. I grew up watching my mother cook — turning a handful of simple ingredients into something with real soul. That was my first education, and it's the one that stayed with me.
But I didn't stop at love. I qualified as a chef in Iran, worked in a family restaurant in the north, and later moved to the UK to study Catering and Hospitality properly — restaurant operations, global technique, the discipline behind a professional kitchen. So when I cook Persian food, it isn't nostalgia dressed up as a menu. It's a craft I've spent my whole life learning.
When I launched I got it from my Maman, one thing became clear: food isn't only nourishment — it's connection. The right dish can carry a childhood memory, comfort you like an embrace, or take you somewhere you've never been.
I love Iran, and I love its people. I believe Iranian cuisine is one of the greatest in the world — and that it has never been given the place it deserves. Everything I make is an argument for that. Every dish, every class, every table is me saying: look how good this is.
I've spent years doing this so Iranians can feel proud of where they come from — and so people who've never set foot in Iran can taste it, understand it, and fall for it too.
And they have.
Over 280,000 people follow this journey across Instagram and Facebook — an audience I've grown organically, one real dish and one honest story at a time. My films are watched more than 1.4 million times a month, my site draws 40,000 pageviews, and 5,000 people invite me straight into their inbox.
But the number that matters most to me isn't a number at all: it's the person who cooks something of mine, passes it to a friend, and tells me it meant something. That happens every day. That's the whole point.
For the brands and restaurants I work with, that's the real asset — not just reach, but a genuinely engaged global audience who trust what I put my name to. When I recommend something, people listen. And they cook.
A few of the thousands of messages I've had over the years.
My kids are growing up in London, far from Iran — but through your recipes, they're growing up Persian. They know the smells, the stories, the taste of home. You gave me that.
I cooked your ghormeh sabzi and, for the first time in years, my whole family sat at the same table again. We stayed there for hours. That's what your food did for us.
I'd never been to Iran. Never tasted the real thing. The first bite of a dish I made from you, I understood — this is a culture, not just a meal. Now I can't stop cooking it.
You don't just teach recipes. You teach us who we are, and where we come from. My daughter helps me cook now, and I know this won't be lost.
You know exactly how the real thing should taste — because you lived it. Every dish carries that. When I cook with you, I taste Iran the way it's meant to be.
My mother passed, and I thought her food went with her. Cooking along with you, I found those flavours again. You gave me a piece of her back.
How I work with brands & people
Cook it the way it deserves. Teach it the way it deserves. That's what I got from my Maman.
Working on something, or want to cook with me? Tell me what you have in mind.
Get in touch