With Georgian cuisine being all the rage in recent years (cue a boat-shaped adjaruli khachapuri bread oozing with cheese and picturesquely topped with a raw egg), neighboring Armenia and its food culture are on the rise among gourmets worldwide. The tiny country in the southern Caucasus—roughly the size of Hawaii and surrounded by Georgia, Turkey, Iran, and Azerbaijan—has every right to be extra cautious, given its troubled past and lingering tensions with some of its neighbors. And yet, Armenians welcome travelers with open arms, eager to meet each and every visitor who makes their way to them.
Armenia is known for its great hospitality: walk into any bakery and they’ll happily toss three extra loaves of bread in your bag as a gift; go hiking and you can’t possibly refuse a spontaneous invitation to a khorovats, Armenian barbecue—signaled only by hand gestures—as you pass one of the many picnic areas. Expect a few shots of homemade vodka to toast family, friendship, and a happy future. No language skills needed, except the universal language of food.
A table setting at Tsaghkunk Restaurant. Photo: Jessica Jungbauer
From freshly baked lavash bread the size of a small tablecloth, to succulent flatbreads stuffed with up to 40 different herbs called jingalov hats, to buttery gata coffee cake, Armenian cuisine is a celebration of its ancient culture, rich heritage, and natural beauty. In spring, the country comes alive with flowering apricot trees and people flocking to the mountains—which boast a rich biodiversity—to pick herbs. Add to that more than 300 days of sunshine a year and 20 percent of the country covered by Lake Sevan, one of the world’s highest freshwater lakes, and you have some of the tastiest fruits and vegetables in the world.
As one of the oldest countries in the world, more and more chefs, makers, and producers are working to shape the country’s culinary future. While women have traditionally done the cooking in Armenian society, it’s female chefs like Arevik Martirosyan of Tsaghkunk Restaurant & Glkhatun who are gaining international recognition for reinventing Armenian cuisine with a modern twist. Armenia is also known as the cradle of wine—with the world’s first winery located in a cave in the south of the country called Areni-1—and Mariam Saghatelyan, co-owner of In Vino wine bar, is working with the best the country has to offer, including a growing number of natural wines.
Below, we spotlight the female forces at the forefront of redefining what Armenian cuisine means today.
Arevik Martirosyan, head chef of Tsaghkunk Restaurant and Glkhatun
Tsaghkunk Restaurant & Glkhatun is a destination restaurant in the truest sense of the word: Leaving the buzzing capital of Yerevan behind, you’ll spend an hour driving north through sweeping landscapes until you reach the tiny village of Tsaghkunk, at about 2000 meters above sea level, with its mountain panorama and passing flocks of sheep and cows grazing on the side of the road. It’s here that chef Arevik Martirosyan creates delicate dishes deeply rooted in tradition while reinventing them.
What was once a canteen for Soviet farm workers has become a haven for modern Armenian cuisine: Think wild sorrel with fruit lavash and walnuts, crispy fried chechil string cheese with buttermilk, or sig fish with sea buckthorn from nearby Lake Sevan. “The menu consists of traditional recipes that I interpret in my own way, but also classic Armenian dishes. For example, fish dolma—we have it in Armenian cuisine, but the sauce is my interpretation,” says Martirosyan. Next door, in the restaurant’s Glkhatun, one of the few remaining 11th-century stone houses with a tonir oven in the floor, the village’s two bakers, Gohar Gareginyan and Anna Yesayan, make fresh lavash to, at the same time, keep Armenia’s ancient culinary culture alive.
How does the Yerevan-trained chef find the balance between tradition and modernity? “I treat it with care. I add modern touches, but I use only local products.” Today, her farmer husband supplies the restaurant with organic and seasonal fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes—which taste especially intense because of the altitude—and Tsaghkunk is involved in the “Gagarin Project,” an initiative to revitalize the region’s rural landscape. Tsaghkunk Restaurant first gained international attention when Mads Refslund, co-founder of the original Noma in Copenhagen, did a pop-up there. But it’s the progressive cuisine of Martirosyan and her team of local chefs, celebrating the best of Armenian produce and culture, that makes this place a must-visit in Armenia.
