Épicerie Arménie: a taste of home in Montpellier

The food you stop expecting to see abroad

Move to France and you get used to a small, permanent absence. The bread is wonderful, the cheese counter is a museum, and yet the one thing you actually fancy on a Tuesday night is nowhere on the shelf. This shop is where that ends.

The range covers the CIS and Eastern Europe properly. Curd cheese and kefir in the fridge. Chechil, the salty braided string cheese you pull apart thread by thread. Smoked mackerel, and dried and cured fish for picking at over tea. Pelmeni and khinkali in the freezer, ready for the evening when cooking from scratch is simply not happening. Sukhariki, the crunchy rye bites that vanish somewhere between the till and the front door. Pryaniki, the soft spiced honey gingerbread, sweets, ice cream, frozen fruit and berries, and the ordinary dry goods you build a week of meals on.

To drink there is kvass, the dark rye drink with a faint fizz, plus juices, mineral water and still water, and a shelf of other familiar labels.

The spice counter is the reason to plan a trip

Go for the spices even if you came for something else. The choice here is noticeably wider than in a French supermarket, which is exactly where the search usually fails: everything for a plov, the rubs that make sense of a piece of meat, the mix a soup has been waiting for, the small jars that make a home dish smell like home rather than like an approximation of it.

And if you do not know which one you want, say so. The people behind the counter will ask what you are cooking and point you at the right jar. That conversation is half the value of shopping here.

Promotions and offers

The shop runs promotions constantly and regularly puts together offers for its customers. Worth a slow lap of the shelves before you head for the one thing on your list, and worth asking what is new this week.

Getting there: straight behind the tram stop

The address is 5 rue Anatole France, Montpellier. Take the tram to Observatoire on lines 3 and 4 and the shop is straight behind the stop: step off, turn the corner, and you are choosing your groceries. Gambetta, on lines 3 and 5, drops you on the other side of the same block and works just as well.

This is the heart of the busy centre, the part of town you already walk through, which is the point: it is a shop you drop into on the way home, not an expedition you schedule for Saturday.

Open 7/7, until late in the evening

No closing day, Sundays included, and the door stays open until late. The shop is open 10:00-22:00 every day, Sundays included, and the phone is there to confirm: 09 84 48 18 48, or +33 9 84 48 18 48 from outside France. Use it if you are travelling in for one particular thing, especially one of the rarer lines, because stock moves.

That late closing is the quiet luxury. Montpellier shuts early, and a French Sunday can be a long day of locked doors. Here you can come after work without sprinting for the tram, and you can come on the one day off you actually have.

Why we go ourselves

We are glad a shop like this sits in the centre of Montpellier rather than in a retail park on the ring road. The produce is fresh, the choice is real, and nobody has ever walked out of there with an empty bag. If you have just arrived in the city, or you are simply hunting for curd cheese, kefir, chechil, smoked mackerel, pelmeni or kvass, save the address.

Putting a table together for a birthday, a picnic or a barbecue? Start here: the sweets, the spices, the freezer and everything for the tea table are under one roof. Our Telegram chat of the “Vibe of the South of France” community - Montpellier is the place to ask anything else about life in the city, and the Montpellier guide or the directory of Eastern European shops cover the rest.