Yerevan on the Cheap: Small Plates That Punch Above Their Price

Armenian food is built on ingredients that were never expensive: bread, herbs, yoghurt, grain, whatever came off the grill. That makes Yerevan an unusually easy city to eat brilliantly in without spending much. Here is the cheap end, dish by dish.

Key facts

• Currency: the Armenian dram; small bakeries and market stalls prefer cash.
• Meal shape: bread, cheese, greens and pickles arrive first and are the point, not filler.
• Markets: the covered GUM Market for dried fruit, cheese and sujukh; the weekend Vernissage for crafts with food stalls nearby.
• Best months: dinner runs late, and summer terraces stay busy well past midnight.

Lavash

The national bread, and UNESCO-recognised as a cultural tradition. Paper-thin sheets are slapped onto the wall of a tonir, a clay pit oven, and peeled off blistered a minute later. Bought warm from a bakery, wrapped around cheese and tarragon, it is the cheapest great thing you will eat in Armenia.

Lahmajo

Armenia's answer to the flatbread pizza: a thin crisp round spread with spiced minced meat, squeezed with lemon, rolled and eaten with your hands. Sold by the piece and priced accordingly.

Zhingyalov hats

A flatbread packed with a dense filling of finely chopped wild greens and herbs, originally from Artsakh and now sold across Yerevan. Vegan by accident rather than design, and one of the most distinctive cheap snacks in the Caucasus.

Khorovats

Armenian barbecue, and the centre of gravity of any gathering: pork, lamb or chicken skewered and grilled over vine cuttings, plus whole aubergines, peppers and tomatoes charred and peeled into a smoky salad. Ordered by the skewer, it scales down to a solo lunch easily.

Spas

A warm soup of fermented yoghurt thickened with wheat and heavy with herbs. Sour, savoury and genuinely restorative, and usually one of the cheapest lines on the menu.

Dolma and harissa

Vine or cabbage leaves rolled around spiced meat and rice, served with garlic yoghurt; harissa is a slow-cooked porridge of wheat and chicken, plain-looking and deeply comforting, with real historical weight in Armenia.

Gata and ponchik

Gata is a sweet, crumbly pastry layered with buttery sugar filling, sold everywhere and often at roadside stalls outside the city. Ponchik, the cream-filled doughnut inherited from the Soviet years, is a national coffee-break habit.

Sujukh, dried fruit and coffee

At GUM Market the walls are hung with sujukh, walnut strings dipped repeatedly in thickened grape must, alongside mountains of dried apricots, peaches and sour plum sheets. Vendors expect you to taste before buying. Wash it down with soorj, thick unfiltered coffee served in a small cup, or tan, the salted yoghurt drink that makes far more sense in summer heat than it sounds.

Tip: Assemble a picnic rather than sitting down. Lavash from a bakery, cheese and greens from GUM Market, apricots in season, and a bench on the Cascade terraces with Ararat in view. It costs almost nothing and beats most restaurant meals in the city.