Georgian cooking rests on three things its neighbours do not have: walnuts as the base of its sauces, spice blends such as khmeli suneli and utskho suneli, and wine fermented in clay qvevri buried in the ground. Tbilisi gathers every regional school in one city — Megrelian, Imeretian, Adjarian, Kakhetian — and the differences between them are real. ## How the table works You do not order one dish per person; you order a great deal for the middle of the table and everyone eats at once rather than in courses. Cold starters — pkhali, lobio, cheeses, herbs — arrive immediately, hot dishes later. Shoti bread is baked against the wall of a clay tone oven and served hot. A supra led by a tamada is a genre of its own: toasts follow a set order and drinking between them is not done. An ordinary restaurant will have no tamada, but if you are invited to someone’s home, expect a long evening. ## Worth knowing Vegetarians do better here than almost anywhere in the Caucasus: pkhali, lobio, ajapsandali, badrijani and the whole cheese range are either fasting dishes or dairy ones, and there are as many of them as meat dishes. Tap water comes from the mountains and locals drink it.
What to eat in Tbilisi
The Georgian table in the capital: khinkali and khachapuri by region, pkhali and lobio, mtsvadi over vine cuttings, khashi after the sulphur baths and qvevri wine.
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Eat khinkali
Large dumplings of chopped meat and broth gathered into a thick topknot. Pick one up by hand, bite the side, drink the broth, and leave the knot on the plate; that is how the count is kept.
You order from five upwards and dust them with black pepper, but nothing is poured over them. Besides meat there are mushroom, potato and cheese versions, boiled separately.
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Eat adjaruli khachapuri
A dough boat of molten cheese with a raw yolk and a knob of butter stirred into the hot filling at the table. You tear off the ends and dip; they are the cutlery.
Stir it immediately while it is hot or the yolk sets. One boat is a full lunch for two rather than a starter.
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Try imeruli khachapuri
A round closed flatbread filled with imeruli cheese, the everyday khachapuri that people here eat as bread. The Megrelian version adds cheese on top as well.
The cheese should be tangy and stretchy: young brined imeruli, not mozzarella. Bakeries sell it by the slice to take away from early morning.
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Try pkhali
A paste of boiled greens, beetroot or aubergine with crushed walnut, garlic and spices, served in balls topped with pomegranate seeds. The classic cold starter and entirely plant-based.
Order an assortment of three or four: spinach, beetroot, bean and, in spring, nettle. Eaten with hot shoti bread rather than with a spoon.
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Try badrijani nigvzit
Strips of fried aubergine rolled around a walnut and garlic paste and scattered with pomegranate. One of the most recognisable Georgian starters.
The walnut paste should be moist and spiced rather than dry. It is served cold, so order it at the start alongside pkhali.
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Try lobio in a clay pot
Red beans stewed with onion, coriander and spices, served in a clay pot with mchadi cornbread and pickles. Filling, plant-based and a complete lunch.
Mchadi and jonjoli, pickled bladdernut shoots, are essential alongside. The spicy version uses ajika, which you can ask for separately.
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Eat mtsvadi
Georgian skewered pork or veal grilled over vine cuttings, which give it its particular smoke. Served on flatbread with onion and pomegranate narsharab sauce.
The vine matters more than the marinade, and a good place burns it in front of you. The meat is traditionally barely marinated: salt and onion only.
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Try chakhokhbili
Chicken stewed in tomatoes with an enormous quantity of fresh herbs — coriander, parsley, basil — and not a drop of added water. The name means pheasant, though there has been none in it for a long time.
The herbs go in at the end and should stay bright green rather than brown. It is eaten by hand, mopping the sauce with shoti.
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Try shkmeruli
Chicken fried and then drowned in a milk and garlic sauce, served in a clay ketsi dish straight from the heat. There is enough garlic in it to be noticeable the next day.
The sauce is mopped with bread, and it is the point of the dish. Some kitchens make a walnut version instead of the milk one.
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Try ostri or chashushuli
Beef stewed in a spicy tomato sauce with chilli and garlic and served bubbling. One of the few genuinely hot dishes in Georgian cooking.
The heat is adjustable: ask for it milder and the kitchen will cut the chilli. It arrives in a ketsi and keeps bubbling at the table.
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Try khashi after the baths
A thick white broth of beef trotters and tripe, eaten early in the morning with garlic, salt and dried lavash. Traditionally after the sulphur baths, and as a cure for the night before.
Khashi houses open from six to eleven in the morning and then close; there is none at lunch. You add the garlic and salt to your own bowl yourself.
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Try churchkhela Desserts and pastries
Walnuts strung on a thread and dipped repeatedly in thickened grape juice, then dried. No sugar at all; the sweetness is entirely from the grapes.
Fresh churchkhela is soft and slightly tacky; rock-hard means it has been sitting since last season. It is made with saperavi or rkatsiteli juice, which is what sets the colour.
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Try pelamushi Desserts and pastries
A thick pudding of grape juice set with cornflour, chilled to a jelly and scattered with nuts. An autumn dessert made at harvest time.
It is the same grape must as churchkhela in a different form. Served cold, often in slices, and not cloying at all.
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Drink tarkhun and Georgian lemonade Non-alcoholic drinks
The bright green tarragon lemonade and its relatives: pear, cream soda and lemon. They have been made here since the start of the last century, and the taste is recognisably unlike ordinary fizzy drinks.
Look for glass bottles from local plants rather than plastic. Its neighbour in the fridge is Borjomi, a salty mineral water.
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Try qvevri wine Local alcohol
Wine fermented in a buried clay vessel together with skins and pips, which is where the amber colour and tannin of the whites come from. The method is over two thousand years old and listed by UNESCO.
Ask for qvevri specifically on the wine list; industrial wine is made differently. Rkatsiteli is the easiest start: amber but not the most tannic.
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Try chacha Local alcohol
A strong grape spirit distilled from the pomace left after winemaking. Homemade versions vary widely in strength, and it is drunk in small glasses with food rather than in one go.
Good chacha smells of grapes rather than alcohol. Markets sell homemade versions in old lemonade bottles, where quality is unpredictable.
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Frequently asked questions
How do you eat khinkali properly?
With your hands, never a fork. Hold the topknot, bite the side, drink the hot broth first and only then eat the dough and filling. The knot is not eaten and goes on the edge of the plate: it once marked the part touched by dirty hands, and now it is simply the tally.
What is amber wine and why is it Georgian?
It is white wine fermented on its skins and pips, the way a red is made. The long contact gives it an amber colour, tannin and a flavour closer to tea and dried fruit than to ordinary white. Georgia has made wine this way for millennia in qvevri, clay vessels buried in the ground, and that is where the method spread from.