This Glendale restaurant makes some of the best kebabs in Los Angeles

The nearly 30-year-old restaurant is best known for its kebabs paired with Iranian rice dishes.

New recommended items include fried quail with hot chili oil, stir-fried Adana fillet and blinchiki.

There should be no open spaces at your table at Adana, the nearly 30-year-old Armenian Persian restaurant in Glendale.

If you order correctly, your plate of tahdig with sweet and sour fenugreek-scented ghormeh sabzi will clash with the crunchy fattoush salad with pita crown, bowls of hummus and mast-o-musir, cabbage dolma, a cheese plate and a variety of grilled meats accompanied by mounds of rice. This is the way of Adana.

For nearly three decades, Edward Khechemyan has filled tables with his family's recipes, all cooked in a kitchen the size of a closet. Now, after a year and a half of closure, the restaurant has reopened with a sleek new dining room, an expanded menu and a kitchen almost three times larger than the original.

The old Adana diner in Glendale. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times) Part of the new dining room. The restaurant closed for over a year and reopened with a completely new design and new menu items. (Jenn Harris/Los Angeles Times)

“It took me four years to get my permit and everything,” Khechemyan says. “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 north Glendale, just off the 5 Freeway. The dining room was more formal than comfortable, with long tables covered with brown tablecloths and high-backed chairs that looked like they were made of wrought iron. The walls were lined with elaborate moldings and covered with 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 an elegant marble bar in the back. In the adjacent living room, the original dining room was cut in half to make room for Khechemyan's dream kitchen.

The remodel was accompanied by a dozen new dishes, drawing on the family's roots in both Iran and Armenia.

Pork ribs with polo albaloo from Adana in Glendale.

(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)

“My father escaped from 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 he learned to cook.”

The restaurant is named after Adana, the city in modern-day Türkiye 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. He now runs Adana with his two sons, Hayk and Narek.

The Glendale restaurant is primarily a kebab destination, with large platters of marinated and grilled lamb chops, pork ribs, chicken, filet mignon, and koobideh. Edward rubs his lamb with turmeric, Aleppo chili powder, salt and pepper. Marinate the meat for three to five hours and then grill it over ceramic charcoal. Despite the lack of an open flame, the meat picks up smoke from the grill, highlighted by the beautiful charred edges and marbling. And there is a slight herbaceous sweetness that permeates the lamb. After some prodding, Edward revealed that he adds a little tarragon to his father's original marinade.

This may be the first time I've recommended a chicken breast, but the nuggets are wonderfully tender, tasting of lemon, pepper paste, and the subtle fruitiness of white wine.

While kebabs seem like real luxuries in Adana, rice is its own treasure. Instead of white rice, Edward pairs his kebabs with a handful of saffron-infused Iranian rice dishes. The zereshk polo features plenty of intensely tart barberries, while the albaloo is topped with big, juicy sour cherries. Edward makes his own preserved orange peels for shrin polo, seasoned with a sweet and sour sauce made of sautéed carrots, butter, sugar, saffron, almonds and pistachios.

Adana Stir-Fried Steak from the new Adana menu in Glendale.

(Jenn Harris/Los Angeles Times)

“We got everything from my father,” Edward says. “We took that knowledge and did our own thing, like our own fantasy.”

The family is not concerned about staying in a specific culinary line, but rather draws inspiration from the large Armenian diaspora. You will find pelmeni and blinchiki, two dishes deeply rooted in Russian cuisine, classified as new appetizers. The latter is a savory crepe rolled over seasoned ground beef.

Edward's new Adana Steak Stir-Fry is reminiscent of Iraqi beef chili and Turkish et sote, with strips of filet mignon sautéed with onions, tomatoes, pepper paste and a touch of Persian curry powder. Serve the savory beef stew on a plate alongside a pile of chewy, earthy spelled wheat groats (achar), topped with fried onions and sautéed mushrooms.

Hayk also joins his father in the kitchen, experimenting with dishes like the new fried quail. The birds are covered in a thick crust of golden breadcrumbs and brushed with Hayek's own chili oil. It's slow-burning smoky and sweet, brightened with cinnamon, fresh thyme and mustard seeds. If you ever bottle the product, I will be the first in line to buy it.

An order of tahdig with ghormeh sabzi at Adana in Glendale.

(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)

With the full bar, there are even more reasons to fill the table and stay for dinner. Traditional is an excellent pairing for lamb chops.

“All these years we do everything we can, 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 often so consumed by the new and trendy that we often forget about the long-standing restaurants that quietly sustain their communities. Consider this your reminder to check out 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 some fried quail.