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🍽️ Food & Drink

Yerevan for Food & Drink Lovers — 3 Days of Tonir Bread, Sujukh and Areni Wine

Market basturma and walnut sujukh, lavash slapped into clay ovens, midnight shawarma on Tumanyan and Areni reds poured along Saryan Street.

📍 Yerevan, Armenia 📅 3-day itinerary

Yerevan cooks around the tonir clay oven and the Ararat Valley harvest: lavash pressed onto hot walls, apricots dried on rooftops, sujukh strung like candles at GUM Market. Three days of market tasting, khorovats smoke, shawarma queues and wine-street pours.

Local Markets & Neighbourhood Food

09:00
🍇 GUM Market (Gumi Shuka)

Yerevan's covered produce hall on Movses Khorenatsi, open daily 09:00–19:00. Vendors slice free samples of walnut sujukh ropes, air-dried basturma crusted in chaman, sun-dried Ararat apricots and twenty kinds of pickled vegetables.

⏱ 2-3 hours 💶 1,500-4,000֏ for a bag of dried fruit and nuts
Prices drop noticeably if you buy by the kilo at the back rows rather than the photogenic front stalls facing the entrance.
12:00
🔥 Sherep

Modern Armenian kitchen on Amiryan with a glass-walled tonir where bakers slap lavash onto the oven wall every few minutes. Order the ghapama pumpkin, spas yoghurt soup and khashlama; portions are large and meant for sharing.

⏱ 1.5 hours 💶 3,500-6,500֏ per main
Ask to stand by the tonir window before you sit — the bakers happily hand over a torn-off piece of lavash straight from the wall.
14:30
🧀 Pak Shuka (Yerevan Covered Market), Mashtots Avenue

The 1952 basalt-arched market hall on Mashtots still shelters cheese and honey counters behind its carved facade. Taste chechil string cheese, brine-cured lori, motal aged in clay and mountain thyme honey from Syunik beekeepers.

⏱ 2 hours 💶 2,000-3,500֏ per 500g of cheese
17:00
🍩 Grand Candy Ponchikanots

A two-floor Soviet-nostalgia bakery hall on Mashtots frying ponchik custard doughnuts nonstop from 08:00 until midnight. Locals pair them with thick hot chocolate or matsoun-based drinks under chandeliers and painted ceilings.

⏱ 1.5 hours
Pay at the cashier first, then take the receipt to the counter — trying to order directly at the fryer gets you sent back to the queue.

Signature Dishes & Restaurants

10:00
🫓 Lavash Restaurant, Tumanyan 21

Named for the UNESCO-listed flatbread, this Tumanyan Street courtyard restaurant bakes lavash in an open tonir all morning. Late breakfast means khash-adjacent broths, matsoun, herb plates and eggs fried with sujukh sausage.

⏱ 2 hours 💶 2,500-5,000֏ per person
Book the inner courtyard table rather than the indoor hall — it sits directly beside the tonir pit and the baker's rhythm.
13:00
🍷 Dolmama, Pushkin 10

Yerevan's best-known fine-dining address, in a 19th-century tuff townhouse on Pushkin Street since 1998. The signature is dolma wrapped in grape leaves with fresh tarragon, alongside Armenian wine flights from Vayots Dzor and Armavir.

⏱ 1 hour
15:00
🍆 Anteb

Western Armenian cooking carried from Gaziantep by descendants of survivors: lahmajun rolled with lemon, sour cherry kebab, muhammara, and pistachio-heavy baklava. The menu is unlike anything cooked in Eastern Armenian kitchens.

⏱ 2 hours 💶 2,000-4,500֏ per dish
18:00
🥩 Tavern Yerevan, Amiryan 5

Village-tavern décor, live duduk some evenings, and a khorovats grill working pork, lamb and whole aubergine-pepper-tomato skewers into smoky ikra. Portions arrive on wooden boards with a pile of warm lavash for wrapping.

Order khorovats ikra as a starter — the grilled vegetables are peeled and chopped tableside and it is the dish locals actually judge a tavern on.

Street Food, Bars & Food Culture

09:30
Mirzoyan Library café, Mher Mkrtchyan 10

A photography library in a Kentron courtyard house where the terrace serves Armenian sourj brewed in a jazve over hot sand, plus filter coffee and cardamom pastries. Quiet mornings among photo books and vines.

⏱ 2 hours 💶 800-1,800֏ per coffee
Turn your empty sourj cup upside down on the saucer — staff and regulars will happily read the grounds for you.
12:30
🌯 Tumanyan Shawarma

The city's most argued-over shawarma window on Tumanyan Street, open from late morning until roughly 04:00. Lavash-wrapped chicken or pork with fries pressed inside, garlic sauce and pickles; the queue moves in about five minutes.

⏱ 1.5 hours
14:30
🥃 Noy Brandy Factory, Arshakunyats 2

Built into the 1877 Erebuni fortress wine cellars above the Hrazdan gorge, Noy runs tours through barrel tunnels holding brandy and wine casks. Tastings cover three-to-twenty-year brandies plus pomegranate wine.

⏱ 2 hours 💶 4,000-9,000֏ per tasting tour
17:30
🍇 In Vino, Saryan Street

Anchor bar of Saryan Street, Yerevan's wine strip, pouring Areni Noir, Voskehat and Khndoghni by the glass with cheese and basturma boards. Tables spill onto the pavement and the street stays busy past midnight.

Ask specifically for karasi wine — the amphora-aged bottles fermented in buried clay karas jars rarely appear on the printed list.

📍 Route map

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