Restaurant Review We Found Sandwich Heaven in This Los Angeles Strip Mall
Arthur Grigoryan’s next-generation Armenian cooking is the kind of food that makes Los Angeles special.
By Tejal Rao
Tejal Rao is a chief restaurant critic for The New York Times.
I see how the restaurant’s name, Yerord Mas Bakery and Deli, might suggest the possibility of takeout. Maybe you imagine sitting on your couch, unpacking quart containers of dips and kyuftas, pitas by the half dozen. But Yerord Mas in Los Angeles does not do takeout. No exceptions!
As the chef Arthur Grigoryan explains on the website, his food “was not built to sit in a box, steam itself to death, and show up at your house as a sad little shadow of what we worked hard to make.” The grumpy note goes on, compressing so much of what I love about Yerord Mas. The casual Armenian restaurant opened earlier this year inside a former doughnut shop, and Mr. Grigoryan takes his work there seriously in all the ways that matter.
The menu is short and changes frequently. In every configuration, it reveals the complex and layered culinary identity of the Armenian diaspora in Los Angeles — the largest outside Armenia — shaped by generations of displacement and migration. It does this with a sense of spontaneity and ease, through dishes that can be fun and irreverent, but also deeply researched and very finely tuned.
Mr. Grigoryan draws inspiration from Armenian kitchens through time and across borders, pulling dishes from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and the former Soviet Union, showing you how they fit together, overlap and belong right here in Los Angeles.
Out on the sidewalk, using a small pizza oven and a portable prep table, Mr. Grigoryan bakes fresh pita throughout dinner service. This bread is a marvel: Puffy and tender, bubbled and tangy, it arrives full of steam. Made from a mix of malted barley and red winter wheat flours, and fermented very slowly, it pulls apart delicately in your fingertips.
The pita will come with an order of the silky, airy pistachio hummus that Mr. Grigoryan based on an Egyptian recipe from the late Middle Ages, and it is just as ideal for pinching little bites of the muhammara, a particularly dense and delicious version of the red pepper dip.
The same pita can also contain a hulking brisket sandwich. I first had it in a Glendale parking lot, when Mr. Grigoryan was still cooking out of a ghost kitchen he called III Mas (named after the part of the Armenian capital, Yerevan, where his father grew up). The sandwich was very good then, but it is better now, as if all of its best qualities have been slightly exaggerated.
The brisket is seasoned in the way of the beef basturma that Mr. Grigoryan grew up eating, with fenugreek, smoked paprika and cumin. But after giving it a long cure, Mr. Grigoryan smokes and steams it so the meat is buttery, the fat beautifully rendered. Slices are layered with crunchy Persian cucumber pickles and a béchamel sauce enriched with egg yolks and Gruyère that you can smell as soon Mr. Grigoryan approaches with your sandwich. (It is already cut in half and a very good idea to share it.)
In a small kitchen with little equipment, Mr. Grigoryan is turning out fantastic pastrami inspired by Central Texas barbecue as well as the flavors of Armenian basturma.Credit…Julie Goldstone for The New York Times
The fact that this sandwich costs $38 became a bit of a controversy in Los Angeles, which might make it seem as if a $38 entree is extreme or rare (sadly, neither). Want to try and guess which restaurant served me a small and profoundly forgettable dish the other night for this exact price? It’s impossible because there are so many offenders peddling mid pastas and roast chicken.
Mr. Grigoryan, who co-owns Yerord Mas with his wife, Takouhi Petrosyan, has been cooking since he was 18, working in France and for a few years in Nancy Silverton’s Los Angeles restaurants. He ran a barbecue pop-up in his Sherman Oaks home for a while before landing a stall at Smorgasburg (where that sandwich developed a small cult following), then setting up that ghost kitchen.
There is almost always fattoush on the menu at Yerord Mas, in a very sharp dressing that is sometimes weighed down with a little too much pomegranate molasses, built with watermelon radishes, Persian cucumbers and the prettiest pink and frilled variation of Little Gem lettuces you’ve ever seen.
Mr. Grigoryan’s paternal grandmother, born and raised in Egypt, was his first culinary influence, and you can see it in his kyuftas, each dumpling showing the grooves where fingers squeezed gently toward palms. The smooth and barely sticky chi kyuftas, made with raw beef and bulgur, are finished with an Aleppo chile crisp and ready to roll into a lettuce leaf. The tender red lentil kyuftas have a tangy shredded carrot salad on top with herbs.
I always want to stay a little longer at Yerord Mas, but the restaurant is scrappy and doesn’t have a beer and wine license or a bathroom for diners (you’ll be directed to use one at Trader Joe’s, down the street). This is admittedly inconvenient and might make you wish you’d gone with takeout tonight, but not me.
On a recent evening, the bare-bones room was warm and buzzing. A group of four men, in what seemed like pajama pants, happily shared two sandwiches. An extended family came in: two sets of elder millennial parents and their children settling into a handful of the tables inside, passing an Iraqi fish curry around as they switched from Armenian to English and back again.
Maybe no one would describe this particular Glendale strip mall as picturesque, but someone had thought to push up the paper honeycomb blinds just before sunset so everyone inside could see the sky go from pale pink and purple-streaked to deep blue.
When it was dark, my friend and I said good night, then talked for another half-hour right outside, chatting with diners as they left, sharing notes on food in the neighborhood with people whose dogs had pulled them off course, toward the scent of the kitchen. Takeout is convenient, sure, but dining rooms like this one make Los Angeles feel like home.
Tejal Rao, chief critic based in Los Angeles, writes starred reviews of restaurants nationwide.
Yerord Mas NYT Critic’s Pick★★6800 San Fernando Road 747-283-1017
Atmosphere: No frills, but projects real coziness. Service is counter service only.
Noise Level: Armenian music, from folk to pop, always playing in the background.
Recommended Dishes: Pistachio hummus; muhammara; fattoush; chi kyuftah; lentil kyuftah; basturma brisket sandwich; margat samak; ichli kyuftah, if it’s not sold out. Mezze and small dishes, $12 to $23; main dishes, $15 to $38; dessert, $12.
Drinks and Wine: Canned sodas and some teas. Price$$ (moderate)
Open Wednesday to Sunday for dinner. Reservations Not Accepted Wheelchair Access Entrance is street level and there is accessible parking in the lot, but there is no restroom.
What the Stars Mean: Ratings range from zero to four stars. Zero is poor, fair or satisfactory. One star, good. Two stars, very good. Three stars, excellent. Four stars, extraordinary.
