Interview with David Yeremyan, General Director of “Yeremyan Projects”

- Mr. Yeremyan, you opened a new restaurant a couple of days ago. It’s a bold and risky step given current circumstances, when many people close the existing ones or change the direction of their business. Why did you decide to open a new restaurant these days?

- I agree that it is quite risky, but still in 2019 we announced that we would complete the unfinished projects in 2020 and open 4 new restaurants.

Our goal was to present the cuisines and traditions of various countries in Armenia using the style and approaches of our company. Casa Nostra was our new dream with Italian taste and atmosphere, and we were planning to open it first. Everything was ready for the opening. However, we delayed the launch of many projects, including Casa Nostra, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Opening the Italian Casa Nostra amid the COVID-19 pandemic was even more symbolic. As long as the borders are closed and various countries, including Italy, continue to fight against the pandemic, with the Italian cuisine, traditions and atmosphere we want our compatriots in Armenia to feel like they are in a real small Italian village, for example, sunny Tuscany. This is a gift to our city, our residents and guests.

- Why Italian? What is the secret of the appeal of the Italian cuisine?

- The Italian cuisine is one of the most famous in the world, and everyone, including Armenians, loves their food very much- risotto, ravioli, various pizzas and pastas. It can be explained by the fact that Italian and Armenian cuisines have some similarities.

The fact that both Armenians and Italians use only fresh and quality food products combines these two cuisines. I can say that they don’t differ much in terms of taste either: they both use food products growing in a similar sunny climate.

There are some similarities in terms of culinary approaches as well. The two countries’ chefs have their own little secrets, something that makes them different from others. Italian chefs are also real gourmets like ours, they prefer to present dishes prepared according to old traditions and secret recipes coming from their mothers and grandmothers.

To some extent, the opening of Casa Nostra became possible thanks to our Culinary Arts and Hospitality Academy, whose graduates work here. By the way, we have a number of courses dedicated to the Italian cuisine at the Academy, which are almost always the most popular.

Casa Nostra has a spacious, open kitchen, where our chefs are going to show their professional skills in front of everyone - a unique, beautiful process of cooking Italian dishes.

- There have been opinions that the restaurant industry has been affected the most by the pandemic and may not recover for a long time yet. How do you see the further development of the sector in these conditions?

- Before opening Casa Nostra we have been thinking long and hard and came to the conclusion that we needed to act right now. We have not been disappointed or discouraged. By opening a restaurant in these conditions, we also want to inspire our colleagues - the representatives of the restaurant business, so that they don’t give up either and don’t let everything earned through many years of hard work, the love and the trust vanish.

We have fully dedicated ourselves to the restaurant industry- our thoughts, our hearts and souls, the inhuman burden of responsibility, the joy and the pride of the results, and we were already starting to see the fruits of the success and effectiveness of the business, especially in recent years.

The pandemic began when we all were just about to see and enjoy the growing flow of tourists. The rapid development of the restaurant industry created new jobs, changed the quality of life, formed a new culture. But what do we have today? It is a frustrating situation when people avoid going to restaurants, give up their habits, the experts in the field are forced to give up their favorite job and put aside the experience and knowledge gained over the years in order to earn a living.

I don’t want us to get desperate. I want us to prove with our work that this industry must develop. We and our colleagues are the ones who must develop it with new and bold projects.

We know better than anyone the nuances of this job, we know what needs to be done so that the already experienced and established specialists do not leave the industry, so that the beautiful and warm places that our citizens love, which have become the symbol of the city, don’t close their hospitable doors. Today, we can’t lose what we have created and built for years. If we miss the time when we can change something, we will face another problem - starting from scratch and building a solid foundation. It is very easy to destroy and lose something, but all this will be over one day and tourism will be restored, and I have high hopes that this long-awaited day is not far away.

We are people who create and never give up. We didn’t close anything; we opened a new restaurant. With this restaurant we will continue the work we’ve started and our mission. Casa Nostra means “our home”. The warm and peaceful atmosphere of a family or friendly restaurant, delicious dishes made according to old traditions, secret recipes of Italian mothers and grandmothers- this is an invitation to the guests: welcome to our hospitable home, our delicious family corner, welcome to the Italy that we imagine. It is right here, next to you. Welcome to our home!