6 recipes
A cuisine at the crossroads of the Caucasus, shaped by walnuts, pomegranates, fresh herbs and cheese breads, and famous for its generous feasting culture.
Read its storyGeorgia's famous boat-shaped cheese bread from Adjara, filled with molten cheese and finished with an egg yolk and a knob of butter.
Large Georgian dumplings filled with spiced minced meat, pleated into a topknot and hiding a mouthful of hot broth, eaten by hand.
A hearty Georgian dish of red kidney beans partly mashed with walnuts, garlic, fresh herbs and Georgian spices, traditionally served in clay pots.
A vibrant Georgian appetizer of blanched spinach kneaded with a spiced walnut-garlic paste, shaped into patties and topped with pomegranate seeds.
A much-loved Georgian stew of chicken braised slowly with plenty of onion, tomato, garlic and fresh herbs, with a sauce made for bread-dipping.
An elegant Georgian appetizer of thin fried eggplant slices rolled around a spiced walnut paste and topped with pomegranate seeds.
Georgia is a small but remarkably rich land between the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains, full of mild valleys and fertile soil. Winemaking here is a tradition thousands of years old, and the traditional method of fermenting in large clay jars buried in the ground (qvevri) is on UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list. At the heart of Georgian food lies the "supra", a long, crowded feast led by a toastmaster known as the "tamada".
Its position on the Silk Road made Georgia a meeting point of Persian, Ottoman and Russian influence for centuries. From Persia came a love of pomegranates, walnuts and herb-laden dishes; the Ottoman mark is clearest in Adjara in the southwest, which was under Ottoman rule for roughly two and a half centuries. Adjarian khachapuri, a boat-shaped bread filled with cheese, butter and egg, recalls the pide of Turkey's Black Sea coast. Communities of Georgian descent in Turkey, from Artvin and Ordu to Sakarya and Bursa, still keep many of these dishes alive.
Kakheti in the east is known for its vineyards and for mtsvadi, meat skewers grilled over vine embers. Imereti in the west is home to the round, cheese-filled Imeretian khachapuri. Megrelia (Samegrelo) is known for spicier food, for adjika and for elarji, a cornmeal porridge loaded with cheese. Mountainous Svaneti, with its herb-flecked "Svan salt" and meat-filled kubdari, and Racha, with its bean-filled lobiani, show how varied the regions are.
Walnuts are the star: ground with garlic and spices, they enrich vegetables, chicken and dips. Pomegranate, the sour plum sauce tkemali and fresh herbs such as coriander, tarragon, dill and basil are always on the table. The spice blend khmeli-suneli and blue fenugreek (utskho suneli) give the cuisine its distinctive aroma. Sulguni cheese, khachapuri and khinkali, juicy dumplings filled with minced meat, are essentials. Churchkhela, strings of walnuts dipped in thickened grape juice and dried, is a close cousin of Turkey's cevizli sucuk.
Start with lobio, a Georgian bean stew with coriander and walnuts. To learn the walnut paste technique, try badrijani nigvzit (aubergine rolls with walnut filling) and spinach pkhali. When you feel ready for dough, bake Adjarian khachapuri; outside Georgia, a mix of mozzarella and a mild, desalted white cheese makes a good stand-in for sulguni.