There should be no open real estate on your table at Adana, the nearly 30-year-old Persian Armenian restaurant in Glendale.
If you order correctly, your plate of tahdig with bittersweet fenugreek-scented ghormeh sabzi will bump up against the crispy-pita-crowned fattoush salad, bowls of hummus and mast-o-musir, cabbage dolma, a plate of cheese and an array of grilled meats accompanied by mounds of rice. This is the Adana way.
For nearly three decades, Edward Khechemyan has filled the tables with his family’s recipes, all cooked in a closet-sized kitchen. Now, after a year-and-a-half closure, he has reopened the restaurant with a swanky new dining room, expanded menu and a kitchen almost three times the size of the original.
“It took me four years to get my permit and everything,” says Khechemyan. “I just wanted to do what was right for the business.”
Khechemyan’s father opened the original restaurant in 1997, on an industrial stretch of San Fernando Road in northern Glendale, just off of the 5 freeway. The dining room was more formal than comfortable, with long tables cloaked in brown linens and high-backed chairs that looked like they were fashioned out of wrought iron. The walls were lined with elaborate moldings and covered in landscape murals. The painted ceiling always made me think of a grand European palace.
Khechemyan took over the space next door to build the new dining room, now filled with plush banquettes, modern curved-back chairs and a sleek marble bar in the back. In the adjacent room, the original dining area was reduced by half to make room for Khechemyan’s dream kitchen.
The remodel was accompanied by a dozen or so new dishes, building on the family’s roots in both Iran and Armenia.
“My father escaped Hamadan when he was 11 or 12 and came to Tehran,” says Khechemyan, who was born in Armenia. “He started working in kitchens in Tehran as a busboy, and little by little learned to cook.”
The restaurant is named for Adana, the city in modern-day Turkey that was once a prominent part of the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia.
“It’s a city known for its food,” says Khechemyan, who started working at the restaurant when he was 22 years old. Now, he runs Adana with his two sons, Hayk and Narek.
The Glendale restaurant is primarily a destination for kebabs, with big platters of marinated and grilled lamb chops, pork ribs, chicken, filet mignon and koobideh. Edward rubs his lamb with turmeric, Aleppo chile powder, salt and pepper. He marinates the meat for anywhere from three to five hours, then grills it over ceramic charcoals. Despite the lack of an open flame, the meat picks up the smoke from the grill, highlighted in the beautifully charred edges and marbling. And there’s a slight, grassy sweetness that permeates the lamb. After a little prodding, Edward divulged that he adds a little tarragon to his father’s original marinade.
This may be the first time I recommend a breast of chicken, but the nuggets are wonderfully tender, tasting of lemon, pepper paste and the subtle fruitiness of white wine.
While the kebabs feel like real luxuries at Adana, the rice is its own treasure. Instead of plain white rice, Edward pairs his kebabs with a handful of saffron-blasted Iranian rice dishes. The zereshk polo features a heap of intensely tart barberries, while the albaloo is crowned with big, juicy sour cherries. Edward prepares his own preserved orange peels for the shrin polo, flavored with a sweet and sour sauce made from sautéed carrots, butter, sugar, saffron, almonds and pistachios.
“Everything we got from my father,” says Edward. “We took that knowledge and we did our own thing, like our own fantasy.”
The family isn’t concerned with staying in a specific culinary lane, instead, drawing inspiration from the greater Armenian diaspora. You’ll find pelmeni and blinchiki, two dishes deeply rooted in Russian cuisine, listed as new appetizers. The latter is a savory crepe rolled around seasoned ground beef.
Edward’s new Adana filet saute is reminiscent of Iraqi beef chillifry and Turkish et sote, with strips of filet mignon sautéed with onions, tomatoes, pepper paste and a touch of Persian curry powder. He ladles the savory meat stew onto a plate alongside a mound of chewy, earthy spelt wheat groats (achar) topped with fried onions and sautéed mushrooms.
Hayk is also joining his father in the kitchen, experimenting with dishes like the new fried quail. The birds are coated in a thick crust of golden breadcrumbs and brushed with Hayek’s own chile oil. It’s smoky and sweet with a slow burn, brightened with cinnamon, fresh thyme and mustard seeds. If he ever bottles the stuff, I’ll be first in line to buy it.
With the full bar, there’s even more reason to crowd the table, and linger over dinner. The old-fashioned makes an excellent pairing for lamb chops.
“All these years we try our best, working hard to bring the restaurant and the food to a certain level,” says Edward. “I work 24-7, but when people leave happy, it gives me energy to do more.”
Los Angeles diners are so often consumed by what’s hot and new that we often forget about the long-standing restaurants quietly sustaining their communities. Consider this your reminder to visit the new version of an old favorite. And if you can, invite enough people to cover the table with your own smorgasbord of kebabs, rice and maybe a little fried quail.
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