Yerevan Restaurants

This is the most amazing of any places, save museums and old churches, we've been to in Yerevan. It's a little hard to find and even harder to describe. It's a craft shop with books and music, restaurant, cafe, tea room, exhibit space, all in a basement with untouched walls and wooden floors. Even bathrooms are unique - one of them has a faucet i have never seen before, you have to push the spout up to get and keep the water flowing. And the staff is so friendly, it felt like we knew everyone from before. Absolutely fantastic.

Favorite Dish: I had a dish with a strange name, which was translated to me as the Priest Lost His Mind - it's made of aubergine with minced meat. The story is that when a village priest ate it, it was so good, he lost his mind. It was indeed. I also had the yogurt soup - Spas. Very-very satisfying.
My companion order onion soup and lamb shank with veggies, which was heavenly - I tried a piece - it melted in my mouth. Onion soup looked delicious as well but I didn't try it.

One of the most comfortable places we visited in Yerevan. The atmosphere is light and airy, the colors are bright and cheery and the music is just right... not too loud!!!! We loved the way the staff greeted us, tons of smiles and an overall happy ambiance.

Favorite Dish: The burgers were authentic American.... yummm.... their homemade thousand island sauce was a hit with our group.

City Diner has really captured the feel of the old '50s style diners. You walk in and the rock and roll music is playing, it's bright, cheerful and full of fun diner memorabilia... I had a blast walking around and finding licence plates from all the states I had traveled to. I was impressed with the food... very authentic and delicious!!!!

Favorite Dish: My favorite dishe???? Chicken Caesar and the Bacon Cheeseburger.... washed down with a strawberry banana shake...Yummmmmm

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For some reason the entrance to this interesting restaurant looks like an expensive clothing boutique or upscale bookshop. The restaurant is actually upstairs. This massive entrance room has pictures of some of the many famous celebrities and politicians who have dinned here and the obligatory coat check. Upstairs is the ornate dinning hall decorated with traditional art, crafts and even representations of food. Definitely picturesque. The service was friendly, prices reasonable and the beer cold.

I found the Khashlama (stew) a bit watery, but good. The vodka served was warm and they are a little unsure about when to bring out the rice. The cool part was when the musicians appeared from nowhere and put on a great show.

If you had just one night in Yerevan, this would not be a bad choice just for the atmosphere and décor. The food is ok at an ok price. It’s also very easy to find, so enjoy!

Favorite Dish:
I had the ‘Yerevan Lights’ for s starter. This is a tasty stew with chicken, pork, potatoes, green beans, peppers served in a tomato based broth. Delicious. My main meal was Khashlama – a stew made with lamb in either beer or wine. Washed down with an indifferent tasting Kotayk and warm vodka.

This restaurant was recommended to us by our hotel staff when we asked about the best places for authentic Armenian food, (after lengthy discussions about the ingredients we needed to take home to attempt cooking things ourselves). This certainly is not the case of an hotel pointing you in the direction of their favoured restaurant - our experiences of the place suggest everything they serve will taste as genuine Armenian food should. Although it's not far from the city centre, the recommendation was particularly useful as it's not really somewhere you would stumble upon by accident. I won't detail what was available on the extensive menu, if you are in any doubt about what to try, the proprietor, Artur, will be happy to explain and make suggestions. (There's not really any communication difficulty but he's the man to ask for anyway.) On one of our visits, there was live Armenian music - as authentic as the food and provided for a large group of Armenians. It's worth calling in advance (or getting your hotel to do so) as the restaurant is obviously popular with the locals and can get busy. Virtually all the food we ate in Yerevan was good quality but this restaurant served the very best of it - and at a remarkably reasonable price.

This restaurant complex has very nice outdoor space, but the big issue is the management. We planned a party there and were given the run around on prices and services offered. From reserving the space until finalization, the prices changed greatly. This was blamed on prior management, but it was clear that the current managers were taking advantage of the situation.

We finalized the menu and costs a week before the event, but during the event we were told that it would actually be close to 20% more because of "miscalculations" on their part. Very clever...announce the extra charges during the event itself so their is little time or will to argue (to avoid affecting the event itself) and of course their was an implied threat to continuation of the event if we did not agree to the charges.

They also made us pay for dinner for the house band, something that was never discussed during the finalization. The ultimate hidden fee, however, was for use of the microphone when the band wasn't playing. The fee was not mentioned when we ensured there was a sound system for use and the reason for the charge was that "most groups bring their own microphones." HUH? I find that hard to believe...

In summary, decent enough place, but out of principle I can never go there again nor would I recommend it to anyone else. I can not support any place with such horrible business practices and thuggish managers.

Yerevan is full of cafes open until 2 or 3 in the morning, all jam packed with diaspora Armenians and Yerevantsis. The diaspora especially fills up the city in August, when the Pan-Armenian games are held. That was the time that I went to Jazzve, a delightful outdoor cafe with delicious dessert. They did look at me like I have 3 heads when I asked for milk with my Earl Grey, but otherwise it's amazing. Armenia has the best ice cream in the world, and it's perfect for a summer night. I got a dish that was crepes (blini) filled with icecream. Out of this world delicious. A side note, in case you don't speak Armenian, the back of the waiters' shirts say "Hima Kgam", which means, loosely "I'll be right with you". An amusing joke :).

I stumbled into Camelot because I couldn't find any other restaurant in Yerevan at night that looked appetizing. I was not overwhelmed by Camelot's quality, but it was decent. The interior is pretty standard post-Soviet fare - which a large flat screen TV (playing Model TV), a large bar, and small dinner tables. I had the "Armenian Pizza," which was essentially pepporoni and mushroom pizza without tomato sauce. The prices on the menu were all reasonable and the person who I went with had some excellent looking pork barbeque.

Service was prompt and friendly and the menu is translated into English, which was nice. Though I probably would not go back, I did generally enjoy the experience.

Favorite Dish: Pork Barbeque