The Studio

Rooted Work. A Wide Table.

Who We Are

Evora is a hospitality studio led by Azmin and Laura Ghahreman. Our work is intentionally grown from family, from kitchens lived in across six continents, and from the deep, practical experience of remaining.

Evora is rooted in a simple belief: the strongest hospitality places are never merely assembled. They are grown.

We start with what already makes a venue itself, then build only the infrastructure that will help it endure. We craft original rooms, curated menus, and distinct operations for those who value unique identity over corporate formulas.

Azmin and Laura lead the studio. The work sits on decades of opening, improving, and guiding places that last. We take on only a few clients at a time, so our counsel remains deeply practical, intensely focused, and thoroughly grounded.

Azmin

Azmin has spent a life building hospitality rooms, not only cooking inside them. Born in Iran, raised across Europe, trained in Switzerland and California, he works as a chef, owner, operator, and concept developer. The hands-on experience spans hotels and resorts, private clubs, independent restaurants, cruise ships, schools, and community dining halls.

To Azmin, the path is not about a list of properties. It is about the disciplined habit of connecting what a kitchen can do anywhere with what this kitchen, in this town, has to execute on any given night. He is fiercely practical on the floor, engineering menus that can be cooked, purchasing that does not leak, teams that can be briefed.

Global memory. Local application.

Chef Azmin

Laura

Laura’s work is language, education, and the floor. She crafts the precise words that the studio and its clients can actually use to articulate their vision, develop standard operating procedures, and implement training programs.

A communications partner and a teacher by training—with years spent in both luxury hospitality rooms and academic classrooms—Laura keeps the work intimately close to the guest and close to the family table. She is the reason our brand sounds like a human being rather than a sales pitch.

Laura Ghahreman

The Household and the Work

Azmin and Laura have been business partners since 1998 and married since 2000. They raised four children—and are now welcoming a grandchild—in the very same years their culinary rooms were being built.

For them, the household and the work have never occupied two separate calendars. What they learned at their own family table directly enriched the venues they built, and the profound lessons learned in those rooms always traveled back home. That integrated reality is the exact studio you hire.

We work from Landrum, South Carolina, nestled in the Upstate between Greenville, Spartanburg, and Asheville. From this home base, we partner with clients across the United States, and selectively take on global projects when the fit is right.

Who we bring with us

We personally handle the essential hands-on work in the kitchen, on the menu, and in operations. When a room requires highly specialized expertise beyond that—especially during launch—we become the command center and bring in trusted partners from our vetted network.

You might see us integrate:

  • Brand and marketing experts so the concept connects with its audience from day one
  • Registered dietitians
  • Food safety professionals (CPFS and HAACP)
  • Architectural and design partners
  • Other specialists the project specifically requires

Even then, you still have one dedicated studio guiding the work from start to finish.

What We Do

We help you bring menu, kitchen, operations, and the welcome into one practice — so the place that opens is the place that lasts.

  • Menu – Menus that can be cooked, served, and sustained — distinctive enough to be remembered, disciplined enough to hold a margin.
  • Operations – The quiet systems under the hospitality: purchasing, labor rhythm, prep, and the leaks that drain a good idea before guests taste it.
  • Experience – The journey from the first threshold to the last goodbye. Concept, arrival, the room as a center for gathering, and the feeling that someone thought about how people are received.
  • Teams and kitchens – Professional development for the people who run the shift, including school kitchens, community dining, and the rooms that feed people every day.

How we work

We meet every house where it is. Sometimes that is one conversation and a sharper set of questions. Sometimes it is a framework the team can use on the floor the same week. When a project goes live — a new menu, a kitchen, a new rhythm — we stay close enough that opening week is the baseline, not the high point. That is why we work with only a few clients at a time.

Who we work with

If your work involves a kitchen, a table, or a guest, you are close enough to start a conversation.

Dining Halls
Charter, public, and private schools, colleges, and universities, and senior dining.

The same craft, balanced with volume, regulation, budget, and guests who eat there every day.

Typical work: kitchen readiness, menus people will actually take, purchasing and labor rhythm, and farm-to-tray programs that do not break the line.

Other Rooms
Hospitals and healthcare kitchens, workplace dining, hotels, resorts, banquet venues, civic districts, spas, wineries, tasting rooms, catering, church kitchens, community halls.

If your room is not named and you still recognize the work, write. The list is an example, not a gate.

Retail and Product Development
Signature items that live beyond service — private-label sauces, packaged goods, market products.

The product should feel inevitable to the brand, not like a separate line.

Typical work: translating recipes for consistent production, protecting flavor at scale, aligning purchasing so retail does not compete with the dining room, and the systems that keep the idea intact from kitchen to shelf. When needed, we bring bottling and packing partners while you keep one studio.

Places We've Been

Our work has taken us through kitchens and tables across six continents. The travel is a practical resource, not a performance. Having seen how rooms actually run, we bring that insight back to the place you are building now. All of our five senses stay fully awake and engaged.