Review on Armenian Taverna
This extraordinary restaurant has been camped out deep in Manchester's bullish Chinese empire for more than 25 years and it continues to celebrate the obscure delights of authentic Armenian cuisine – whatever the neighbours might think.
Go down the stairs to a subterranean, rustic and refreshingly untrendy world where thick, whitewashed walls, candles and solid wooden furniture set the mood and a huge period mural dominates the scene. There's music on Saturday nights and the food comes in gargantuan helpings.
Brilliant-value special banquet is a good way of negotiating the frontiers of the cooking, and it culminates in a sumptuous sticky delight involving pistachios. Otherwise kick off with meze-style morsels such as kibbeh (lamb with cracked wheat), baba ganoush, or Armenian sausages, then move on to the high-protein main courses.
The choice of 'Khorovadik-superb' char-grilled kebabs ranges from whole poussin to Gaizig trout, and everything comes with mighty timbales of rice dusted with cinnamon, plus salad and bespoke tomato sauce; there's even an Armenian take on goulash using lamb on the bone with couscous on the side. The modest, keenly priced wine list has some very decent Middle Eastern stuff including Chateau Musar.
Cuisine
Eastern European
Chef
Yianni Pelekanos
Restaurant Opening Times
Lunch: 12.00 through until
Dinner: 11.00pm (12.00am Fri & Sat, 10.00pm Sun)
Accepted credit cards
Visa, Master Card
