Enjoying the Gift of Food at Ararate Armenian Restaurant
While some people eat out of necessity, we eat out of enjoyment and genuine appreciation for the amazing gift that food is.
Have you ever thought about food like that?
Not only does it nourish and strengthen us so we can live our best lives, but it also has the ability to entertain (ever watch a baby eat something sour? equally amusing to see the same reaction from an adult :p ) and enrich us intellectually by shedding light onto different cultures and the way historical events have influenced the flavors and styles of cooking around the world.
Yes. Food can actually make history interesting for people who are not, by default, history buffs! Now that’s power. 🙂
When visiting a city like Lisbon, Portugal you generally have wider access to restaurants serving unique foods from distant lands and this is, in fact, a huge draw for many weekend-in-the-city getaways!
You can imagine how excited we were when we discovered a nearby Armenian restaurant during our most recent weekend in Lisbon.
Ararate Armenian Restaurant in Lisbon
Ararate Armenian restaurant is located just a half mile (about a 10 minute walk) from where we stayed in Saldanha. We arrived on a Sunday around 7pm without a reservation and on this occasion there was no trouble accommodating us.
The decor inside this Armenian restaurant was very cool and full of cultural elements from paintings to tapestries, and the ornate mirror everything combined to create a unique dining experience in Lisbon, as you will soon see.
Ararate Lisboa Menu
The menu at this Armenian restaurant in Portugal will take you on an absolute journey. It’s somewhat of a work of art, in my opinion, and if you have time to read through it you will learn a lot, including that the restaurant is indeed named after Ararat – the mountains where the ark rested after the Flood of Noah’s day. (Genesis 8:4)
Restaurant Review
Ararate Drinks Menu with Prices
While bottles of wine could be found on the left side, we focused on the right side of the page.
Remember in the 9 tips for eating at restaurants in Portugal post how we discussed ordering water in restaurants? Here is a good example for you. Still, bottled water, is available in a half liter or full liter for 2.50 and 3.50 euros, respectively. If you prefer Água com gás natural, that is naturally sparkling mineral water, you can have it for 4 euros.
You’ll also note that they carry bottles of Sagres beer and when you see Cerveja pressão that means a draft beer. Wine by the glass costs 5-6 euros at this Lisbon restaurant.
-> See Also: Ordering Beer in Portugal
We decided to enjoy the Kilikia Lager Beer from Yerevan Brewery in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia with our meal at Ararate.
Americans Try Armenian Food for the First Time
We were really excited to try Armenian food for the first time! The menu really had us excited as everything looked and sounded so delicious!
Khachapuri Barco — Traditional Pastry with Cheese & Egg — €10.5
How could we pass up a pastry boat filled with cheese? Ironically the first thing we ordered is actually from Georgia. Ararat restaurant, in fact, serves dishes from Armenia as well as the Caucasian countries bordering Armenia like Georgia!
So what is Khachapuri Barco?
Khachapuri Barco is a traditional Caucasian pastry from the Adjara region of Georgia stuffed with cheese, egg yoke, and butter.
How to eat Khachapuri Barco
The waiter prepared the dish for us to eat, but when you receive it the pastry will not be cut and you will see a bright egg yoke on top.
To eat Khachapuri Barco, you break the egg yolk and mix it together with the hot, melted cheese and butter until combined into a rich sauce. Then you can cut the pastry and eat it!
Our thoughts on Khachapuri Barco
The first bites were really tasty – I mean it’s cheese filled bread after all! As the rest of the food arrived and the cheese started to firm up it was a bit too much for the two of us, although we did finish it of course. 😉 We think this would be even better if shared among more people so everyone can eat a piece at its optimal temperature and texture!
I would not hesitate to try Khachapuri Barco again at an Armenian restaurant, especially with more friends!
Khinkali — Stuffed Dough Bags — €2.75
The Ararate menu describes Khinkali as “Artistically hand molded dough bags, filled with succulent minced meat and a rich aromatic broth” You must order at least 3. We ordered 4 so we could each have 2 Khinkali.
I was most excited to try Khinkali because in the past when there was a Special Convention in Georgia, I thought I remembered the info page talking about “soup dumplings” and ever since I’ve been intrigued by the concept.
But How Do You Eat Khinkali?
First, pick one up by its little dough handle. =)
Remember that inside this little parcel is hot soup broth as well as a “meatball” (not really in a ball shape, but just for a familiar reference). So you want to take a little bite to create an opening in the pastry that allows you to drink up some of that delicious broth!
While eating Khinkali, holding the soup dumpling in a way that the broth won’t spill out all over the place. You can take bites of the meat along with slurps of the broth together!
Once all the broth is gone, eat what’s left but do not eat the doughy handle. It has served its purpose.
As it turns out, Khinkali is a Georgian dumpling that is super loved in Armenia and it’s not hard to tell why. These were my favorite of everything we ate at Ararate.
To me, Khinkali is a perfect food. It’s cute, made with love, filled with broth (big soup fan over here), and really flavorful meat. Eating it is a cultural experience, learning the technique is enriching and entertaining because you’re probably going to make a mess at first.
Khinkali is just an all around good time. 10/10. Tell your friends.
Lamb Lulyá-Khabab — Charcoal Grilled Meat Skewers with Potato — €17
Meat is central to Armenian cuisine and we opted for the lam lulyá-khabab. The ground lamb meat is really nicely seasoned and it’s traditional to roast these meat skewers over an open fire.
The skewer came with potatoes, a little sauce, and some red onion with herb slivers.
Trilogia Dessert Trio — €7
This dessert sampler platter was a feast for the eyes, don’t you agree? What presentation!
Dessert descriptions from Ararate Menu:
- Honey Cake – Layered dough cake based on honey and sour cream
- Ecler (Eclair) – Sugary dough balls, known as choux, filled with custard as our chef likes it and a lot of powdered sugar
- Pakhlava (Baklava) – Pastry made with a paste of walnuts crushed with cloves and cinnamon, wrapped in filo pastry and bathed in syrup
Of all the desserts I would say the honey cake was my favorite. Imagine the work to make such thin layers of cake and perfectly stack them with cream in between!
Cafe Ararate — €5
It only seemed right to finish the meal with Armenian coffee. Armenian coffee is made on the stove pot in a special coffee pot called a jazve. Armenian and Turkish coffee are brewed in a similar way. Cezve is the name of the Turkish coffee pot.
This method of brewing coffee normally yields a thicker and more flavorful coffee. We are fans of intense coffee, but actually found this to be a bit thin. Not sure if it needed more time to develop or if our palates are simply not yet attuned. Still, we are happy we tried it and loved the finishing touch of fresh strawberries!
A Very Cool Lisbon Restaurant
If you’re looking for a unique restaurant in Lisbon Portugal, why not give Ararate Armenian Restaurant a try?!
It’s a whole experience. In fact, I loved it so much (especially those Khinkali) that I am including it as a recommended experience in Lisbon.
What I’d Like to Try Next Time
If I make it back to Ararate restaurant, besides delighting in more Kinkhali, I would love to try their Dolma (veal stuffed grape leaves), Putukh (Lamb stew with chickpeas, potatoes, onions and tomatoes served in a clay pot and covered with a bread crust), Khurdjin (oven roasted lamb in a bundle of lavash with vegetables stewed in beer; lavash is Armenian flatbread) as well as the Tabulé, which by the way was one of my favorite things on the Sun Princess buffet during the Mediterranean Cruise!
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