Considering the history, the influence, the depth and the sophistication of Iranian food, it has always seemed unfair that New York City has so few places to eat it. Unfair to the cuisine and unfair to would-be eaters.

If you want a symbol for the state of the cuisine in New York City, Taste of Persia NYC will fit the bill. Until recently I might have called it the city’s most promising Iranian kitchen, if the word kitchen weren’t such a stretch. Taste of Persia is a takeout operation squeezed into the front window of a Chelsea pizzeria, except during the two months when fire damage forced it to take up temporary residence in a holiday market. It does show off some of the pleasures of the Iranian table, but not the table itself.

So a new Brooklyn restaurant called Sofreh, which joined the Iranian ranks in June, would have caused a stir even if the cooking weren’t quite as good as it is. The dining room is spare and modern, with exposed rafters, molded plywood chairs and shades of soft white. You have to look carefully to see the breaks with garden-variety minimalism, like the echoes of medieval arches behind the bar and the Persian calligraphy carved into the plaster in the back, where a small deck hangs above a garden. Minimalism surrenders entirely in the bathroom, papered in a pulpy collage of posters from pre-revolutionary Iranian cinema.