Georgia is a melting pot of flavors. Wedged between the Caspian and Black Seas at the crossroads of some of the world’s most historic empires, Georgia blends east and west with a dash of influence from the Mediterranean and Middle East and makes it all taste good.
As a result of this strategic location – historically Georgia was a key caravan stop along the Silk Road – Georgia lived through and recovered from repeated invasions from all directions, including Mongols, Persians, and most recently the Russians. As a result, you will catch subtle hints of these cultural influences throughout the country. The food is no different.
Eating in Georgia is a total sensory experience – colors, smells, sounds, and textures will overwhelm the table before you can even engage in your first taste. If you find yourself lucky enough to have a seat at a traditional Georgian supra, below are some of the staples worth knowing in advance.
Khachapuri Adjaruli
Warm, fluffy bread. Molten butter. Melted, bubbling sulguni (cow’s milk) cheese. And an over-easy egg on top. What else, honestly, does one need for happiness?
Khachapuri Adjaruli, the national dish of Georgia, is actually just one of the many regional versions of this incredible Georgian food. The premise is simple – bread and local sulguni cheese – but from region to region, you’ll find all sorts of interesting ingredients mixed in, such as vegetables, diced meats, or beans along with regional cheese varieties, of which there are many.
Some look like pizza – khachapuri megruili has cheese both inside and on top. Some look like cheese-filled croissants – khachapuri imeruli is the most common one you’ll find. And some, like khachapuri adjaruli, appear to be bread-baked tubs full of cheese, butter, and egg. In this case, appearance is not deceiving, because that is exactly what it is.
Do get messy. You’ll want to mix together the egg, butter and cheese as soon as it hits the table. While each ingredient is delicious alone, the khachapuri adjaruli whole is certainly greater than the sum of its parts.
Do share with friends. khachapuri adjaruli is best enjoyed family style, with each member of the table tearing off a section of the “canoe” and dipping it into the sauce. This is Georgian food at its best.
Don’t consider taking some home as leftovers. Eat it fresh, or don’t eat it at all.
Don’t let the dish get cold. Ever.
Khinkali
Of all the Georgian foods acquired from conquering armies and invasions, khinkali is without peer. With striking similarities to the Central Asian manti, local legend places the origins of the dish in Georgia in the hands of the Tartars, the 13th century rulers of what is now Georgia and Armenia.
Whatever the case, we can all agree that whoever brought this dish to Georgia was a culinary genius – few foods can produce the level of comfort acquired from a belly full of khinkali and homemade wine.
And although khachapuri is the national dish, khinkali is arguably the national pride. No other Georgian food can spur such passionate debate and competition amongst friends and family alike, similar to discussions about gumbo in Louisiana, lobster rolls in Maine, or pork barbeque in Tennessee and North Carolina.
Do experiment with regional varieties. Although minced meat with herbs is the go-to staple, many varieties incorporate diced mushrooms with herbs as well as a basic potato-filled version. Both are equally delicious.
Do keep track of how many you can eat. Georgian men take pride in the number of khinkali they can consume in one sitting. In discussions with Georgian men, you’ll inevitably talk about khinkali and should know your numbers.
Don’t eat the knobby stems – Georgian friends always advise that the “knob is for peasants”. Plus, keeping the knobs on your plate is the best way to keep track of how many you’ve eaten.
Don’t spill the juice. It takes practice, but the polite and proper way to eat khinkali is by grasping it by the knob, tilting your head back slightly, taking a small bite out of a corner, slurping out the broth, and then moving on to the dumpling. It gets easier with repetitions, of which we hope you will have many.
Mtsvadi
Georgian mtsvadi. Georgian pork shashlik. Georgian pork barbeque. Online searches may use different titles, but the adjectives are universal – simple, delicious, and filling.
Mtsvadi is the go-to protein of Georgian food. Fatty cuts of pork, such as the breast or shoulder, are the most common version of the dish, however both beef and lamb can be used as well. The unifying factor, both literally and figuratively, is the skewer.
And in true Georgian food fashion, this dish is not over-complicated. No fancy marinades and no fancy presentation. The recipe simply requires good meat, a liberal dose of salt, and a crispy char that is traditionally achieved with fresh coals from burnt bundles of dried grape-vine prunings. It doesn’t get any more Georgian that that.
Do use tkmali (sour plum) sauce as an accompaniment if it is offered. This is the Georgian food equivalent to barbeque sauce in the south, or Old Bay in the Chesapeake – you should put it on everything.
Do eat the raw onions. Traditionally, mtsvadi is served over a bed of raw onions that often get ignored by tourists. Don’t make that mistake – the combination of the fatty pork with the tangy onion covered in juice makes a delightful combination.
Don’t forget about the bread. If you’re lucky enough to participate in an outdoor, friends- and family-style mtsvadi barbeque, the chef will use a piece of Georgian flatbread to “unsheathe” the skewers, giving participants a delicious, filling appetizer to share.
Lobio
In a lot of countries, there are certain dishes whose sole purpose is to “fill in the gaps”. These dishes, when served at a feast, are purely complementary and fill the gaps in both quantity and time while the main courses are prepared and served. Served alone, though, and they lack much flavor and character.
Georgian food doesn’t follow these rules. The “gap-fillers” in Georgia not only add color, texture, and flavor to a supra, but also serve as powerful stand-alone small plates full of perfect one-bite fusions of spices and herbs transformed with patient, slow-cooking time.
Lobio is one of these dishes. Not quite refried beans, but not quite bean soup either, lobio stands in a league of its own when it comes to the preparation of the humble kidney bean.
When you take the time to soak, slow-cook, and hand-mash the beans with mortar and pestle, then unite them with fried onions, cilantro, vinegar, dried marigold, and chillies in a warm clay pot, lobio is the simple yet spectacular dish you’ll get.
Do eat lobio with mchadi, the Georgian version of griddled cornbread. Cornmeal, salt and water never tasted so good.
Don’t limit your lobio consumption to Mtskheta alone. While Mtskheta is certainly known as the birthplace of lobio (with dedicated restaurants devoted to its cause), you should enjoy the regional approaches to this dish throughout Georgia.
Kharcho
Georgians are known for their “hangover” foods. Things like khachapuri, khinkali, and lobio with heavy mchadi cornbread have legendary powers after one-too-may liters of amber wine.
However, no other Georgian food can flip your day after a long night of drinking like kharcho.
Kharcho is the epitome of Georgian comfort food. Served warm with handfuls of soft shoti bread fresh out of the oven, the combination of the soup’s warmth, texture, consistency, and flavor makes it one of Georgia’s most prized dishes by locals and tourists alike.
The dish begins with beef, heavily seasoned and seared, until it is immersed in the local chef’s liquid blanket of garlic, walnut, cilantro, and spices. After several hours, the sauce is thickened and the meat is falling off the bone – this is when it is ladled into a bowl and served with warm shoti bread.
Do embrace the heat. Real kharcho is served hot, both in terms of temperature and spice, so a good sweat is a natural and healthy result when enjoying a fresh bowl.
Do mop your plate. You’re not going to offend anyone by breaking bread and mopping up every last drop of kharcho broth. Frankly, you’d offend the chef by not doing this sacred act.
Don’t treat this like an appetizer soup. kharcho, like all Georgian foods, is heavy, so treat it like a meal, not a side.
Nazuki
Georgian bread, particularly Georgia’s famous khachapuri cheesy bread, is getting a lot of hype lately. And rightfully so. There are few foods as consistently delicious as Georgia’s regional approaches to combining bread with cheese.
However, stay a little longer in Georgia than your average one-week trip, and you’ll find that khachapuri barely scratches the surface when it comes to Georgian bread.
Take nazuki, for example. You won’t read much about nazuki, the Georgian sweet bread, in traditional tourist books. In fact, 99.9% of tourists in Georgia will likely never know it exists. The only place you can reliably find is on the side of a highway just outside Surami, a small village tucked into the hills between Tbilisi and Kutaisi.
If you do find it – and you should – you’ll be amazed by its simplicity. In addition to its standard sweet bread ingredients – milk, dry yeast, a pinch of sugar, two eggs, butter, more sugar, salt, cinnamon, cloves, vanilla extract, white flour, and a beaten egg yolk for brushing – the one spice that separates this sweet bread from Middle Eastern varieties is the addition of ground coriander. That and, of course, the extreme heat produced from the tones clay oven (similar to the tandoor).
Do sample nazuki from more than one road-side stall. You’ll find some versions with raisins, some without, and some with just sugar, whereas others full of cinnamon spice.
Don’t be intimidated by the tough-looking women selling it on the side of the road outside Surami. Despite their weathered appearance, these are some of the friendliest and most generous women in the world.
Kubdari
Perhaps after spending a week or two in Georgia, you’ve hit your cheesy bread limit. You’ve eaten bread with cheese. Cheese in bread. Cheese in bread and on top of bread. Cheese in bread with egg and butter.
You just can’t fathom starting yet another meal with a pizza-sized khachapuri “appetizer.”
You’re in luck. In typical Svan fashion, the people of Svaneti took something distinctly Georgian – khachapuri – and put their own mountain spin on it.
Kubdari is the Svan version of Georgia’s national dish. Rather than filling the flatbread with cheese, they mince whatever protein they have on hand – beef, goat, pork, or most commonly lamb – mix it with local spices, finely dice an onion, and wrap it in dough.
For the lactose intolerant, or those considering it after a week in Georgia, this is a pleasant alternative and worthy of your attention.
Do consider trying this at home – since you don’t have to try and replace Georgian cheese with local alternatives, you can easily replicate the process with a good cast iron skillet.
Don’t give up on traditional khachapuri altogether – sometimes all you need is a short “detox.”
Lobiani
A great bonus of Georgian food is how versatile is can be. If you are an avid trekker, visiting places like Svaneti, Tusheti, and Lagodekhi during you stay in Georgia, you’ll quickly find that a lot of Georgian food serves as great chow on the trail – it keeps fairly, well, is full of carbohydrates and calories, and is both filling and comforting.
Lobiani, a regional dish of the beautiful (but relatively off-the-map) Racha region, is another regional take on the famous khachapuri and an incredible trail food. Like the kubdari from Svaneti, lobiani swaps the cheese from khachapuri imeruli and swaps it with a paste of slow-cooked kidney beans, herbs, bacon (and fat), and finely diced onion.
While it certainly doesn’t look or sound like much, the combination of the flatbread with slow-cooked beans, salt, spices, and smoky bacon flavors makes for an addictive snack, both at the table and on the trail. You won’t be able to eat just one.
Don’t judge the book by its cover. Like many Georgian foods, looks can be deceiving. The power of Georgian cuisine is in the ingredients, and lobiani is no exception.
Do eat lobiani with your hands – half of its draw is its practicality: it is a cheap, readily available and filling snack that you can eat on the go.
Tomato Cucumber Salad
You may be thinking, “why would I come all the way to Georgia to eat tomato and cucumber salad?” And your instinct is fair – this salad is certainly common to more countries and regions than just Georgia and the Caucasus.
However, don’t trust your instinct in this situation. Georgian tomato and cucumber salad is something you should sample with every meal during your (presumably) brief stay in Georgia.
Here’s why:
First, the produce. Simply put – Georgian food uses arguably the best, most under-the-radar organic produce in the world. Georgia was doing it organic before “organic” became a thing. The tomatoes, in particular, are of the highest quality – the size, flavor, texture, and even the moisture content are all perfectly balanced to provide an incredible snack. Add fresh cucumber, sliced onion, and some chopped parsley, and you’re in business.
Second, the condiments. There is good reason why sunflowers compete for some of the same soil and sunshine in the Alazani Valley normally reserved for grape vines. Fresh sunflower oil to Georgians is like olive oil to Italians – it can dress just about any dish. When drizzled over tomato cucumber salad, it converts your average Mediterranean salad into a true Georgian salad – only the unrefined, poured-from-a-repurposed-Coke-bottle-style sunflower oil can produce the warm, toasty notes that, along with the humble walnut, make Georgian food so distinct.
Do have at least a small plate to share with every meal. You’ll be surprised at how many unique ways this simple dish can be prepared from region to region.
Don’t expect to recreate this at home. Sure, you can dice up some tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and parsley, and you are certainly welcome to smuggle home some water bottles full of Georgian sunflower oil. But something will be missing. There’s just something about those Georgian tomatoes.
Badrijani Nigvzit
The humble eggplant, or aubergine as many European travelers have pointed out to your author mid-sentence, serves as a vessel for nearly as many flavors as the more notable flatbread in Georgia.
Look no further than a plate of badrijani nigvzit for an introduction to the Caucasus’ approach to this versatile vegetable.
The set up is quite simple. Slices of roasted eggplant, served open-faced and flat or sometimes rolled, are topped (or stuffed) with a thick walnut and garlic paste. Slice the eggplant into manageable cross-cuts, making sure to include chunks of the walnut paste, and you’re on your way to the perfect bite.
Do give this dish a shot, even if you don’t like aubergine. Like many things in Georgia, the “Georgian version” of this vegetable is not what you may be used to elsewhere.
Don’t try to pronounce this dish in Georgian – though a friendly waiter will probably understand what you mean.