The food and drink industry is a famously fickle world.

With new restaurants opening every week, it's inevitable that some of the older guard get forgotten, or fall out of favour - particularly in the city centre, where custom is more transient, diners less loyal.

The average lifespan of a British restaurant during the last decade was just over three years, according to data from CGA.

Yet somehow, a handful of restaurants stand the test of time.

Armenian Taverna opened in a basement beneath Princess Street, just off Albert Square, in 1968, making it one of the city centre's oldest restaurants.

Squeezed into the frontage of the Virgin Money bank, the doorway is easily missed: pop in for a mortgage appointment, end up with meze.

A magnolia-tiled staircase leads down to the restaurant, past a wall of photos of the taverna's famous guests. Armenian footballer Henrikh Mkhitaryan was a regular during his time at Manchester United, and teammates Juan Mata and Zatan Ibrahimovic are also among the faces smiling out from the frames.

The interior had stayed a shrine to the 1970s until recently, its decor untroubled by the decades until 2016, when a refurbishment rid it of the red murals that ran rampant over the walls.

Some of the famous faces to have visited Armenian Taverna

It's much more understated now, though still resolutely old school.

Tables are spread with white tablecloths and laid with cut-glass wine goblets and tumblers, against a backdrop of mottled plasterwork walls, intricately embroidered wall hangings, tiled floors and marble columns.

Bordered by Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan and Georgia, and formerly a Soviet republic, Armenia's cuisine is a melting pot of Middle Eastern and European influences.

The menu here reflects that, mixing native staples such as lavash bread, khorovadz kebabs and stuffed cabbage leaves with the likes of borsch, a Ukranian beetroot soup also popular in Russia, and Georgian khinkali.

Mutabal (£5.50), a grilled aubergine dip made with tahini, olive oil and garlic, looks like something you might grout a bathroom with - a grey, gritty-looking putty that fortunately tastes far better than it looks once piled on warm pitta.

Mutabal

Halfway between hummus and baba ghanoush, it's subtly smoky and nutty, although its dense consistency makes it pretty heavy going.

A plate of khinkali (£14.50), a Georgian speciality, is much more appealing: six knobbly dumplings filled with minced pork and veal, their crinkled casings leaking a little buttery broth at first bite.

A speckling of black pepper, a spicy red pepper dip and a pepper and cabbage slaw all give it a kick - but I have made a grave mistake.

Khinkali

"Yes, you did it wrong," owner Arman chides me as he clears my plate and I admit I've been defeated by the last two dumplings.

He's a man of few words, and deadpan delivery ("No, it has been sold," he'll later bark when I ask for my coat back from the cloakroom, before helping me into it). I like him.

The pinched dough stems aren't meant to be eaten, FYI - they're for picking them up with. And now I must never show my face in Georgia.

Alongside the main menu, there's a good value weekday lunch menu offering two courses for £12.95.

Starters include a mushroom blini that is, to all intents and purposes, the exact same pancake we'll all be attempting to flip on Shrove Tuesday, only stuffed with a drab fried mushroom filling instead of Nutella.

Some pickled carrot on the side does its best to jolt it to life, but does the culinary equivalent of turning the voltage up too high and instead deadens it completely.

A main course of pasus dolma (stuffed cabbage leaves) looks more like something you might discover in a biology lesson than in a restaurant. Criss-crossed with veins, the translucent skin of the cabbage bulges with a purple-hued, lumpy filling, and a watery tomato sauce spattered on top doesn't make it any easier on the eye.

Pasus dolma

But the sharpness of the pickled leaf, the earthiness of the bulgur wheat, lentil and kidney bean filling and the smoothness of a dollop of sour cream on the side conspire to create an unexpectedly tasty combination.

A bumble bee-striped slab of honey cake (£6) for dessert is every kind of sweet: a caramelised honey sponge layered with creamy frosting and dusted with a sugary crumb.

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We wash it all down with a couple of bottles of Armenian lemonade (£3.75), one a sugary peach fizz, the other a highlighter pen pink-coloured barberry flavour, though if I hadn't had to drive later I'd have had more fun diving into the Armenian wine and brandy list instead.

It's quiet when we visit on a weekday lunchtime, but disco lights in each corner are poised for a party atmosphere at the weekends.

Maybe it's the bunker-like setting, hidden away from the world outside, but despite the upgrades, Armenian Taverna still feels like one of those places that time forgot - a relic of old-school hospitality.

Long may it never change.