Tsaghkunk Restaurant & Glkhatun near Lake Sevan is part of the Gagarin Village project, an enterprise devoted to the sustainable development of the region conserving as much of its traditional land usage and food ways as possible. The restaurant makes its own lavash in a renovated medieval glkhatun, a traditional village headhouse with tonir ovens, just a few paces away from the restaurant,
The Tsaghkunk kitchen is presided over by Chef Arevik Martirosyan, and prides itself on its deeply researched and masterfully prepared traditional dishes. A very special one among these is Amich, an ancient dish of stuffed chicken. Professor Ruzanna Tsaturyan, an ethnographer who has conducted extensive research into local traditions for the Gagarin Village project and Tsaghkunk Restaurant, explains that Amich is so old that it can be dated back to well before the middle ages, to the old Armenian royal court of late antiquity; the earliest attestation, she says, is in the Epic Histories text of the 5th century scribe Faustus of Byzantium.
As the bread flies from the glowing ovens under the vaulted roof of Tsaghkunk’s medieval headhouse, we can expect the experimental fire it symbolizes to warm up and illuminate new life for the region.
Lavash baking in the tonir of Tsaghkunk glkhatun (headhouse). Martin Wiktor Palm.
