Trouble had come to Pizza Paradise. A police car sat outside 12 West 18th Street on Monday. Two protesters paced the sidewalk, bearing saffron-yellow placards and handing out fliers printed with an all-caps battle cry: “DON’T EAT HERE.”

Inside, two police officers conferred with the pizzeria owners. Solo diners hunched over triangles of pepperoni.

The counters to the left of the front door were bare — a conspicuous blank spot in a city where every inch of real estate is exploited and fought over. For seven years, that corner belonged to one of Manhattan’s most charming and serendipitous pop-up restaurants: Taste of Persia NYC.

There, Saeed Pourkay, a print-shop manager turned chef, stocked chafing dishes and pots with the likes of fesenjan, a stew of crushed walnuts and pomegranate molasses, sour and sweet. His ash reshteh, a dense noodle and bean soup, was simmered for hours down to a heavy ink and topped with bronzed shards of garlic, crispy onions, dried mint and a cooling daub of sour kashk (fermented whey).