They go big on birthdays at Marouch, a 41-year-old East Hollywood restaurant at the corner of Santa Monica and Edgemont. When it comes time for cake, a staff member will turn out all the lights, a disco strobe casting rainbows across the room. A 1970s Lebanese pop version of “Happy Birthday to You” will blare from a hidden CD player (yes, it still works), every head in the room swiveled towards your table, clapping along. And you, or your friend, or your loved one, will be the center of attention, a blend of embarrassment and delight on their face from such a wonderfully cheesy display.
Others might prefer Glendale's more opulent dining rooms or Westwood’s tiny but mighty collection of Persian restaurants, but you can’t ignore the cozy atmosphere and steadfast cuisine at Marouch. The modest strip mall space feels like a cozier, more compact version of a Glendale kebab palace, down to the pseudo-bricks and Corinthian columns that line the walls. Marouch's Armenian-inflected Lebanese fare first put it on the map in the ’80s. In 1990, then-L.A. Times restaurant critic Ruth Reichl included Marouch in her list of the city’s top 40 restaurants, praising the meze, a dizzying, tasty assortment which you can still get today. The late Jonathan Gold used to visit the restaurant weekly. Even compared to then-new competition like Raffi’s, he deemed it “as good as ever” in 1994.
At a time when L.A. diners are easily swayed by hype, novelty and whatever’s trending online, it can be easy to ignore older restaurants that have largely disappeared from the spotlight. At 41, Marouch lacks the retro-historic appeal of Musso and Frank (est. 1919) or Langer’s (est. 1947) or the institutional status of Spago. Wolfgang Puck’s classic restaurant opened in 1982, the same year Sossi and Serge Brady, Marouch’s original owners, first set up shop in East Hollywood’s Little Armenia. Nevertheless, Marouch is still open today—a testament to the restaurant’s staying power and the efforts of Haikouhi Keshishyan, the Bradys’ grandniece, and her husband Roman, who took over the business together in 2018.
A lot of time, sweat, energy, tears and sacrifices have gone into keeping Marouch going, explains Roman. During the pandemic, the Keshishyans closed the restaurant for several months before reopening for takeout orders. Eventually, they built an outdoor dining setup by installing an 11-foot-long sliding door, which they’ve since dismantled. Now, they have a two-year-old at home, and it’s been difficult to manage raising a family alongside running a small business.
In their hands, the restaurant has maintained a near-identical menu, save for the addition of manti, an Armenian ground beef dumpling and tomato yogurt sauce recipe passed down from Haikouhi’s great-grandmother. In 2022, food celebrity Guy Fieri featured the dish on an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. “This dish has become a new staple,” says Roman. “Folks from all around the country are stopping by because they’ve seen this show, and they specifically ask for this dish.”
Aside from the manti, Marouch serves many of the same dishes beloved by generations of Angelenos, including plenty of celebrities. (By the bathroom, you’ll find faded headshots of Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Lee Curtis on the wall, plus countless others.) Since taking over, the Keshishyans have also retained most of the old employees, including a few who have worked there for decades. The couple also added the colorful strobe lights to Marouch’s birthday tradition, which has used the same song since 1982.
In 2024, it’s difficult to imagine an era of L.A. dining when just a few prominent restaurant critics were able to dictate what was cool to a wider audience. The public’s attention span has shrunk considerably, there's a perpetual fixation on what’s new and anyone can share restaurant recommendations online with zero editorial oversight or attempt at “objective” fairness. Visit Marouch once, however, and you’ll quickly understand how it’s outlasted so many others—and might walk away with a new place to keep in your back pocket.
Marouch is located at 4905 Santa Monica Blvd and is open Tue–Thu 11am–8pm; Fri, Sat 11am–10pm; Sun 11am–8pm.