As I wrote in the article about the hotel, breakfast there wasn’t very tasty or varied. So we went down the street for breakfast — across the road there was a McDonald’s. Everything at McDonald’s is standard, just like in our home countries, except for a few extra burgers — for example, there was a cheeseburger with chilli peppers. Sometimes we also dropped into Wendy’s for breakfast — decent burgers too. You can get there the same way from the Guru hotel: down the street, but without crossing the road.
For lunch and dinner we preferred the city centre: not far from the sulphur baths there’s a whole street of cafés and restaurants. You can get there by metro to “Avlabari” station, then walk a few blocks down the street, cross the Metekhi bridge, and a little further along the road there’ll be a turn to the left with steps going down. Jan Shardeni St, Tbilisi. This street consists entirely of cafés and restaurants. We really liked the café with the orange cushions. It’s very cosy and delicious there, the waiters are pleasant, and in the evening a wonderful, talented artist usually comes and plays the violin.
We also went to a rather expensive restaurant on the neighbouring street, “Cotton Row” — the restaurant “Tiflis Meidani“. I won’t leave a map location for this restaurant. According to online reviews, it’s a wonderful restaurant; we were attracted by the national Georgian dances held there in the evenings. The restaurant really is expensive, but the problem isn’t the price. It has a very nice loft-style design; we ordered several dishes and a bottle of wine. The waiters served us very nicely and did it well. You’re probably already wondering what the problem was. The problem is that we ordered dishes we had already tried in other, simpler cafés, and we simply didn’t expect such badly cooked food in an expensive restaurant… We ordered “kupaty” (a national Georgian dish similar to our grilling sausages), which in this restaurant consisted of barely edible gristle and sinew — it was very hard to find any meat in them. The salads we ordered were hardly edible either. It felt as if, on seeing tourists, they decided to feed us everything that should have been thrown out yesterday. That’s exactly why I categorically do NOT recommend this restaurant!!! If it were a café, a canteen or something like that, some flaws could be excused, but this is a restaurant, and not a cheap one at all…
Khinkali! Everyone advises you to go straight to the “House of Khinkali” on arrival and try khinkali. I don’t recommend going straight to the “House of Khinkali”. Try them in several places, and even if you try them at the House of Khinkali, don’t rush to conclusions. I strongly recommend trying them in a few more cafés. We first tried them in several cafés and only then got to the House of Khinkali. I can’t say they’re not tasty there — maybe we were unlucky, or maybe the cafés where we’d tried them before made them better. All in all, we didn’t much like the House of Khinkali; it wasn’t very tasty for us. I won’t leave the map location — we went to a House of Khinkali not far from Rustaveli metro station. Anyone who wants to can find it on the map. A little more about the rules of eating khinkali. Khinkali are not pelmeni. You don’t attack them with a knife and fork. You eat them with your hands! They have a little “tail” that you hold them by; you bite into the khinkali from the side, drink the juice from inside and then eat the khinkali itself. But the tail you hold it by is not eaten!
Old Metekhi. A restaurant where you need to book a table at least that morning for the same day — or better still, 1–2 days in advance. Online reviews don’t sound great: everyone disliked something about the food, the service, the booking and so on. After our experience with the restaurant described above, I was sceptical about this one too. But we really wanted to see the national dances, and I don’t regret taking the risk! This is a restaurant I can recommend. Everything was very tasty, the waiters were polite and served quickly, and the evening show was wonderful. Choose a table close to the aisle in the middle of the restaurant — then you’ll be in the front row for the folk dance show.
We also went to the restaurant Royal Restaurant. It’s one of the closest restaurants to our hotel: down the street, without crossing the road, on the right. Very tasty shashlik and decent cocktails. Everything was very tasty and the service was good. Now the downsides: the menu is small, and sometimes even items on the menu aren’t available. There are few people in the restaurant. The portions are small compared to other cafés and restaurants.
On excursions around Georgia there will be lunch stops. Important ☝️! In most cases lunch costs extra. Listen carefully to your guide. Since your time there is limited, not every dish is worth ordering. In Kakheti, for instance, we waited for 2 people from the excursion who had ordered steaks and only got them when everyone else had already eaten — even though the guide had explained beforehand what takes a long time to cook and what you can order. And if you want something from the “long” menu, order it together with other dishes — that way it’ll be quicker and nobody will have to wait long for you!
What to try in Georgia, my recommendations:
- Khinkali (in several places!)
- Khachapuri
- Definitely WINE — we really liked the “Tvishi” wine!
- Kharcho (although we didn’t try it, I definitely want to go back and try Georgian kharcho!)
- Chakapuli (again, meat stewed with herbs, spices and potatoes. The meat is lamb, with sour plums, coriander, tarragon and white wine added.)
- Kubdari
- Cheeses
- Lavash
- Mtsvadi (shashlik)
- Dolma
- Chashushuli (veal stewed with vegetables)
- Churchkhela
- Freshly squeezed pomegranate juice
- Lemonades (Lagidze Waters)
- Mineral water (I really liked Nabeghlavi water)
- Chacha
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