For chef Francesca Marjan Pourfard, founder of the pop-up dinner series Marjan Pourfard, everything starts with a recollection.
“Memories that are very nostalgic, and I kind of can’t get out of my head, I think are really valuable,” she says. “It’s not going to ever read the same for someone else.”
Consider the Persian rugs draped over her table. “[Guests] come and see the table and they think the runner is just a really beautiful runner,” she points out, while in fact it’s a Persian rug from her father’s store and a crucial part of Iranian art and culture.
Half first-generation Iranian, Pourfard spent her childhood visiting to the mountains of Tehran, where she sat on rugs eating eggs and sangak with her family. “The rug was such a strong basis of that moment,” she says. “My dad comes from a family of 10. I only have one aunt that’s here. Everyone else is there. They all have so many beautiful memories and things that I can take from to bring here and be able to share with people.”
That longing to share her culture is what led her to launch Marjan Pourfad, her pop-up dinner series earlier this year. After graduating from culinary school and working at restaurants like AOC in Los Angeles, Pourfard yearned to bring the flavors of her heritage to her local community here in San Diego, where she didn’t see much Persian food representation. The series’ first event coincided with Nowruz (Persian New Year) in March, an auspicious time for new beginnings. It has since expanded to once a month seated dinners for 18 guests with wine pairings provided by Shrieking Meemies, a local natural wine pop-up business by Maggie Henderson and Jack Hughes.
Though rooted in Persian flavors, Pourfard’s menus don’t always adhere to tradition. Classic Iranian courses flow seamlessly between more contemporary ones. Every monthly menu is different, save the final dish: faloodeh, an ancient Persian dessert made with rose water (though she imparts it with a seasonal twang each time; last dinner, she used cucumber, finger limes, and sumac). Charcoal-grilled kebabs and tahdig, aguachile and fruit-filled salads—the five-course menus often stretch into six, seven, or eight, depending on what she feels like whipping up.
Pourfard’s entire family has helped her launch the series. Her brother Nicholas built out the space and furniture, with help from Maximus Killigrew, a local artisan builder. Her parents’ property, a sprawling locale filled with fruit trees and plenty of veggies and herbs that make their way onto her plates, serves as the venue for the dinner series. Personal friends lent their expertise and passion—Guava Floral creates the flower arrangements, Sofía Limón made the ceramic dishes, and even Pourfard’s boyfriend helps as a food runner for the meals. Her sous chef Chad Pernicano is another longtime friend who left professional kitchens like Jeune et Jolie to pursue a new full-time career in education. He didn’t have experience cooking Persian food, but Pourfard says his technique-driven style of cooking as the perfect counterpart to her more improvisatory, flavor-driven focus. “We’re able to bring our brains together, and it works great,” she adds.
In 2025, she’s planning more chef collaborations, and perhaps even an Italian-inspired dinner as a nod to the other half of her ancestry. Tickets become available for purchase on her Instagram page when the dinners are announced. While Pourfand knows she could always return to restaurant work, she’s invested in the pop-up series for now. “Pop-ups have given people freedom to sort of express themselves in a way that maybe we don’t always get to express ourselves in the kitchen,” she says. “For me, being able to see people eat my food and talk to them after… [it] satisfied something in me that I sort of never got in a kitchen.”
She’ll continue to help put Persian cuisine on the map in San Diego. “The culture is so giving and so caring and so loving,” she says. “Being able to display that for people feels like an honor.”
