No one is doing Armenian food in LA like Yerord Mas

Back when it operated out of a ghost kitchen, Yerord Mas went viral for an Armenian brisket sandwich that was so good it left us in silent awe when we ate it sitting on the hood of our car. Now, at the chef’s first brick-and-mortar restaurant in Glendale, there’s a sign that reads “no takeout” in all-caps. If you want to get your hands on the coveted sandwich (as well as other dishes, like pistachio hummus and lentil kyuftah), you’ll have to wait with a crowd fighting for six small tables arranged inside a tiny space that used to be a strip mall donut stand. It can take a while to place your order—we’ve waited as long as an hour—but all will be forgiven after the first bite of melt-in-your-mouth brisket on warm housemade pita.

Yerord Mas isn’t like other Armenian restaurants in Glendale. There are no kebab skewers, no mounds of rice, and no baskets of lavash. Instead, there’s a globe-trotting perspective and a very specific selection of diasporic dishes, including a tomato-y fish curry from Iraq, raw beef kyuftah with Chinese-style chili crisp, and blistered pita bread that an older man making the rounds between tables helpfully pointed out was based on an old Egyptian recipe. And then there’s that sandwich, stuffed to the brim with the best smoked brisket this side of Fort Worth. Yes, it costs $38, but one order is enough to split, and if all that juicy beef was laid out seductively on a plate, no sane person would question the price.

Still, prices loom large here. This place ain’t cheap. The fattoush salad is $21, though it’s one of the more elaborate versions we’ve ever seen, heaped with plump cherry tomatoes, huge cucumbers, and heirloom lettuces. The food is far fancier and more ambitious than the cramped setup might suggest, which ends up being Yerord Mas’ main quirk, since it isn’t the most comfortable place to eat. The glass box of a dining room can be hot and stuffy, there’s no bathroom whatsoever—you’ll be directed to a nearby grocery store if nature calls—and the slightly chaotic service often makes the seating process take longer than seemingly necessary.

But here’s the part that really matters: Yerord Mas makes some of the best and most interesting Armenian food you can get anywhere in Los Angeles— and probably in all of America, for that matter. So if you can handle kicking around pebbles in a parking lot off San Fernando Road for a while, eating here should be an easy call. Maybe you’ll make friends with the other people peering into the windows or taking videos of pita baking in the outdoor oven while they politely wait their turn. We’ve found that talking up that brisket sandwich tends to be a good icebreaker.

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