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An Ode to Zankou Chicken
In a nondescript mini-mall in a rundown section of East Hollywood called “Little Armenia” sits an innocuous eatery wedged between a laundromat and a liquor store. The site is the original Zankou Chicken, a humble Lebanese restaurant named after a river in Armenia.
Known for their spit-roasted rotisserie chicken and luscious garlic paste, Zankou admirers included Pulitzer-prize winning food critic Jonathan Gold, who wrote Zankou is “good enough to tempt even an ardent Zionist to flirt with the other side.” The musician Beck wrote about Zankou in his song “Debra” singing their chicken was “ripe for the pickin’.” Larry David devoted an entire episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm to Zankou Chicken framing the restaurant as a Palestinian diner where Jews secretly met their mistresses. (Funkhauser utters the classic line, “If Rabin can break bread with Arafat then I can eat at this anti-Semitic shithole.”)
Back in the 1990s when I lived in neighboring Los Feliz, I met my pothead friends at Zankou. We immersed ourselves in Shawerma & Chicken Tarna, dipping into the garlic paste and tahini sauce. The restaurant was short on vegetable options though I knew a vegetarian who said Zankou chicken was the sole exception to his avoidance of meat. The restaurant was a melting pot of socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. There would always be a table of LA cops seated in a corner while hipsters…
