Where to go looking for lavash, dolma and gata in Yerevan

A few minutes south of the city centre in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, tree-lined avenues fall away and eye-catching pink architecture gives way to stark Soviet-style buildings. None is as plain and squat as the GUM Market, a sprawling covered market that looks quite boring from the outside. Inside, however, is another story.

Once through the door, it is just one humungous hall, and an assault on the senses. Rows and rows of colourful dried fruits, heaps of fresh produce, pickled vegetables and preserves, cheeses, fresh baked breads and sweets stretch out in all directions. The air is thick with the combined aromas, and the vendors, mostly cheerful women, shout out greetings and try to coax and cajole visitors into sampling their wares. The place is a microcosm of Armenian food.

Located at the intersection of empires, Yerevan’s avenues bear the vestiges of those that passed through it – from the Ottomon and Persian empires to most recently the Russians. From these passing cultures have come layers of spices, stuffed vegetables, grilled meats, preserves and fermented foods and the use of fire in various ways. All these layers are visible at the GUM Market.

Once the sensory overload has abated a bit, my guide Vako, explaining away the variety, says meals are usually not rushed affairs. A typical spread has cheese and herbs accompanied by thin lavash bread, followed by salads and sujukh, then grilled meats, dolma and then lastly gata. As the day progresses, we sample many of these components.

Breads for all reason

Walking around the city, it is common to come across basement bakeries, many of them generations-old, that constantly churn out lavash, the iconic sheet-like thin bread. They are made in tonirs, clay ovens that are sunk into the floor, and resemble large tandoors. The lavash is very central to the Armenian scheme of things, sacred even, to the extent that it found its way into UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

One section of GUM Market is set aside for this and it is fascinating to watch women stretching the dough into translucent sheets and slapping them against the walls of the tonir. A few minutes later, the blistered bread is peeled off with a hooked rod and stacked into a steaming pile. Scenes like this are visible across neighbourhoods in the city and it is easy to spot them because of the fragrant air that hangs around them. The lavash serves multiple purposes: to scoop up vegetable and meat dishes, mop up sauces, wrap around grilled meats and cheeses, or just snack on them with tea or coffee. There are other versions of the bread, stuffed with herbs, cheese and vegetables. Called zhengyalov hats, it is a meal in itself as I discovered at Lavash Restaurant on Tumanyan Street; it went very well with matsun, a thick curd like dish with herbs.

Hearty meats

Locals like to joke that smoky smell is the default perfume of Yerevan. And it’s not just from the tonirs. As the sun goes down, thousands of small and big barbecues come to life all over the city, in restaurants, on street-sides and in backyards. On them hiss and sizzle khorovats, chunks of meats that are mildly marinated, or sometimes not at all, because the emphasis is on the quality of the meat.

The smoky flavours, from grilling chicken, lamb and pork that are salted, are exquisite. They taste even better; crusty on the outside and tenderly juicy on the inside. For a more complex flavour profile, the chunks are paired with grilled onions, tomatoes, peppers and fresh herbs, and wrapped in lavash. Though restaurants serve this, the best place to have it is on Proshyan Street, locally called barbecue street, a row of stalls that the locals prefer. There are also dry cured sausages that are sliced thinly that have black pepper, fenugreek and garlic, which are bit chewy in texture.

Greens and grains

Though Armenian cuisine might feel meat-heavy, it is actually wonderfully balanced with an abundance of vegetables. In summer, tables are filled with tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, beets and herbs such as basil, dill and tarragon. But by far the most popular vegetarian dish is dolma, grape leaves wrapped around rice with lentils and grains, though minced meat is also known to find its way into the stuffing. When the vines become dry, grape leaves are replaced by cabbage. Even better are peppers and tomatoes that are hollowed out and filled with stuffing and seasoning, making for a sumptuous meal. At Dalan Art Gallery and Restaurant on Abovyan Street, a pretty al fresco restaurant with greenery and filled with art, the dolma and salads are simple, fresh and flavourful. Armenian cuisine also has its own version of pilafs that are packed with dried nuts and apricots accompanied by stewed eggplant. There’s also matsun, which is eaten as a dip or accompaniment, or diluted and consumed as a drink.

Sweet connections

If the GUM Market is anything to go by, then it is safe to say Armenian desserts tend towards a profusion of dried nuts. Apricot is the country’s national fruit and are found everywhere and in various avatars – fresh, dried, stuffed, dipped in sugar syrup… But there are a plethora of others and the most popular way to consume them is dipped in molasses with spices and turned into sujukh. However, there are also a variety of baked desserts, chief among them being gata, which is part cake, part pastry and wholly delicious. Across Yerevan, bakeries make versions of this, their windows are filled with trays of discs or parallelogram-style pieces, their tops etched with beautiful decorative patterns. I stop to taste it at one of the stalls in GUM Market where it is fresh out of the oven. The outer layer is flaky and the inside is soft, buttery and fragrant, and makes for a soul-satisfying bite at the end of a meal.

As the sun sets, the city feels like it aglow, owing to the abundance of pink stone buildings, especially at Republic Square. This is also where I witness another Yerevan tradition – the pulpulak, communal drinking fountains from which passersby stop briefly to hydrate. Such fountains dot the entire city and are adorned with traditional Armenian inscriptions and even ornaments and are considered to be a symbol of purity and renewal. Not just tasting food around Yerevan, but even the simple act of drinking from a communal water fountain feels like peeking into the warm, generous heart of the city itself.

Anita Rao Kashi is an independent journalist based in Bengaluru.