Heritage Eatery opens its doors in Glendale
Inside one of Glendale’s newest restaurants, called Heritage Eatery, Alissa Asmarian serves dishes made by her grandparents and her mother as well as meals she prepares for her two daughters.
“I call it ‘new American’ because I’m an American as much as I am an Armenian,” she said. “I’m just tweaking some of my mom’s recipes and my grandma’s.”
For more than a dozen years, Alissa Asmarian ran Favorite Place, a popular tea shop on West Wilson Avenue, near Brand Boulevard, before she sold the business in 2014.
The new owner closed their business endeavor a couple of years later.
Just as Asmarian and her husband, Sarkis, were looking to open a new restaurant in Pasadena, they learned Favorite Place’s former location was available.
To their delight, a repair of the ceiling’s water damage revealed two arched windows and a skylight where natural light now falls into Heritage Eatery — the name suggested by their daughters because they felt she should cook food from her heritage.
With a mostly organic menu that changes daily, the Asmarians serve dishes that are meant to be shared family-style.
The plates are intended to introduce Armenia’s sweet and savory flavors to a new audience.
Two such starters include the bulger lettuce wraps made with roasted red bell pepper and topped with tomatoes and cucumbers and the summer watermelon salad drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette, feta cheese and mint.
“I’m proud to be an Armenian. We have amazing food that I think has been misrepresented. We’re known just for our kebabs, and we have more than just kebabs. I just wanted to showcase that, and introduce that to our non-Armenian friends and say, ‘Look, we have more than that.’”
If pressed to choose, Sarkis Asmarian’s favorite dish is the roasted chicken, marinated overnight in garlic and yogurt, served with oven-baked fries.
Many of Heritage’s sauces and preserves are sourced from Armenia.
The house salad features an apricot vinaigrette, made with apricot preserves, over fennel, sweet peas, blood oranges, celery and arugula.
Additional menu items inspired by various nationalities include the “international mac and cheese,” as she named it, with mozzarella, Parmesan, American and feta cheeses.
“We can still keep our culture and our heritage, and introduce dishes that are still very much inspired by different nationalities,” she said.
All of it can be washed down with rosewater lemonade.
Alissa Asmarian’s belief in food’s ability to foster friendship and inspiration can be traced to her mother, Luiza, who years ago amped up her own family’s traditional oxtail soup by pouring Armenian beer into it.
The soup is now served at Heritage Eatery.
“My mom, if she goes out to dinner somewhere, if it’s an Asian restaurant, Mexican restaurant — whatever — she’ll come home and recreate it. She loves culture, she loves food, and she says, ‘The way to get to know someone is through the food that they eat.’”
Twitter: @kellymcorrigan
