Taste Georgia
საქართველო
A small mountain country between the Black Sea and the Caucasus with one of the world's oldest wine cultures and a cuisine built on walnuts, herbs and bread.
Georgian cooking tastes of walnuts, fresh coriander, garlic, blue fenugreek, marigold, sour plum and pomegranate. Bread and cheese meet in khachapuri; dumplings carry broth in khinkali; beans, greens and aubergine are bound with walnut paste. Meals are organised around the supra, a feast with a toastmaster, dozens of plates and amber wine from clay qvevri. Each region has its own khachapuri and its own cheese. Eastern Kakheti is wine and grilled meat; western Imereti and Samegrelo are cornbread, spice and heat; the mountains are lamb and dumplings.
6 recipes · 1 cuisine
All dishes 6
- 2 hr 15 min
Adjaruli khachapuri
აჭარული ხაჭაპური
Georgian cheese bread boat with a raw egg yolk and a knob of butter stirred into the molten cheese at the table.
Medium
- 1 hr 50 min
Khinkali
ხინკალი
Georgian soup dumplings: pleated pouches of spiced beef and pork, eaten by hand, broth first, topknot left on the plate.
A bit of work
- 1 hr
Lobio
ლობიო
Georgian red beans stewed with onion, garlic, walnuts, coriander and fenugreek, served warm with cornbread and pickles.
Easy
- 1 hr 20 min
Chakhokhbili
ჩახოხბილი
Georgian chicken stewed in its own juices with onions, tomatoes and a late shower of coriander, basil and parsley.
Easy
- 55 min
Pkhali
ფხალი
Georgian spinach and walnut pâté, seasoned with garlic, coriander, fenugreek and vinegar, dotted with pomegranate.
Easy
- 1 hr 25 min
Badrijani nigvzit
ბადრიჯანი ნიგვზით
Georgian fried aubergine slices rolled around a garlicky walnut paste and finished with pomegranate seeds.
Easy
Regional cuisines
Think you know Georgia food?
6 quiz dishes. Optional — Passport stamps still come from cooking.
Take the Georgia food quizFood history
Wine has been made in Georgia for about 8,000 years, longer than anywhere else with evidence. The country sat on trade routes between Persia, Byzantium, the Arab world and Russia, and the food shows all of them without belonging to any. Persian influence brought pomegranate, saffron substitutes and rice; Ottoman rule touched the west; Russian imperial and Soviet rule spread Georgian restaurants across the empire, where they were the good restaurants. Independence since 1991 and a tourism boom have made khachapuri and khinkali international.
Common ingredients
Techniques
- grinding walnut pastes
- hand-pleating dumplings
- baking filled breads
- dry-frying meat before braising
- finishing with raw herbs