Meet Me Here - Tbilisi

04/11/2024

Manana is a baker who specializes in stuffed breads. If you’re lucky, you can snag her tarragon and rice pie but don’t disregard anything she has on the shelf. You can find her upstairs in the “new” building, which sadly is slated to be demolished for a stupid shopping mall. Nobody knows exactly when that will happen. In the meantime, though, we’ve got Manana where we need her. 🇬🇪

03/11/2024

Vashli season. If it wasn’t for Stalin, Gori would be known around the world for its apples. Some say if you eat four apples every six hours you’ll keep twenty-four doctors away. 🇬🇪

28/10/2024

We’re not surprised in the least but that doesn’t make it any less painful, less violated. I saw the exact same election violations in 2003 and felt the same nauseating gut sadness of having your most basic right spat and trampled on. Tonight we go and protest and tomorrow, too. We’ll keep on protesting. .restaurant

23/10/2024

’s three day birthday binge wrapped up with a supra at where whipped up a supper that wiped us out. A fitting and filling finale for a global group of food lovers.

16/10/2024

The gastronomic G-**ot is located somewhere between the tongue and the soul and only a few restaurants know how to make it hum over and over again, like a good lover. .wine.bar is one of those restaurants. 🇬🇪

09/10/2024

I was here once, it was so good I had to try it again to make sure it wasn’t a fluke or I wasn’t too high from bazaar chacha. Zeche is good, very good with a youthful menu of original twists on “traditional” cuisine. The chakhokhbili is as twisty as you can get. Partly Asian, partly, Mediterranean and partly Georgian, it inspires as much chin scratching as it does belly rubbing. The Kvalam Kvari, a hearty cheese dumpling in a spicy herb globbered sauce is a Lazy Boy of comfort. I’m coming back here again, and again.

09/10/2024

Watermelon season on the high wane while drying season waxes. The peppers will no doubt be ground into a fiery adjika and the persimmons will dry into sweet gooey snack before getting hard enough to crack a riot police shield.

21/09/2024

Levan, the pomegranate man. 🇬🇪 🇬🇪

10/09/2024

Doctor Irakli Khvedaguridze is a legend. At 83, the doctor braves the winter months alone to provide care to the handful of year-around Tusheti residents on horseback. His secret to longevity is a routine of morning calisthenics, no ci******es and as he demonstrates here on his balcony in Borchona, the highest inhabited village in Europe (thanks to him), chacha in moderation. It was a gathering that put tears in everyone’s eyes, for his humbleness and his beauty is like that, and it put so much chacha in our veins that our hearts sang and soared lavishly off our tongues and we rolled down the hill exhilarated like never before to the next table and started it all over again.

10/09/2024

Love this guy.

Shalva Kikodze (Georgian 1894-1921). Expressionist painter, graphic artist and theatre decorator. Together with Lado Gudiashvili and David Kakabadze, he is considered a key figure in Georgian art of the early 20th century.

08/09/2024

In the kitchen of Darejan Ichirauli, native of Shenako and blessed by the gods of cookery.





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30/08/2024

The colors of the Dezerter’s Bazaar should be a hashtag. . Wallah!

15/08/2024

Thank you so much Wander-Lush - Cultural Travel Blog for loving the market with me and sharing your experience with your friends!

15/08/2024

In June, Kartlos Chabashvili and I inaugurated our Gastrotours project with a mind blowing trip to Tusheti, Georgia's most isolated and jaw droppingly gorgeous region. The snow-tipped peaks, ancient settlements clinging preposterously to the sides of mountains, rolling meadows and rushing mountain rivers made for a stunning background for our indulgences.

Once again, we will explore Tusheti through the people maintaining its standout mountain food culture, a heritage infused with pagan traditions, natural ingredients and old world know-how.

Join us September 6 - 9 for the last trip to Shangri-La this year. For more information, cut and paste this link, right here:
https://www.meetmeheretbilisi.com/services-1-1

03/09/2022

Rtveli, or grape harvest, is crazy non-stop weeks of noble, intense, back- breaking labor that this year arrived in the middle of an unrelenting heat wave in Kakheti. Ketevan Hubert and her team start picking her organically grown grapes at 3am. She works into the night cleaning, crushing and punching. In about a year we'll be able to enjoy the fruits.of her labor, the first vintage in her new cellar. Hers are some remarkably distinctive Kakhetian wines. Tilisma Winery's gaumarjos!!! Tilisma Winery • მეღვინეობა თილისმა
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20/08/2022

My love affair with negroni blossomed late in life at a humble outdoor cafe in Cortona, Italy. I saw two Italian gentlemen sipping what looked to be paradise in a glass. "I'll have what they're having, per favore." One sip, I was hooked. The he**in of cocktails.

Tbilisi is the center of the universe for many delectables, but lags somewhat in the realm of cocktails. You need good dry vermouth for a proper negroni, and sadly, most bars are not aptly stocked. I was recently at the new .tbilisi, waiting for a friend, late afternoon. The air-conditioning inside was refreshing, but too artificial. I wanted to cool together with the evening outside at the bar. And I wanted a negroni. They make them fabulously. I had another.
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