Gldani was built on the northern outskirts of Tbilisi during the 1970s and 1980s as a satellite city of well-ordered concrete towers for the working masses. Newer and pricier (though still uninspired) real estate developments are now challenging the Soviet blocks, but Gldani still remains predominantly a working-class district. Located around the last stop of Tbilisi's main metro line, Akhmeteli Theatre, Gldani’s center “is packed with local businesses like exchange kiosks, shopping malls, street vendors, casinos or cafes,” writes Tbilisi architecture biennale founder Tinatin Gurgenidze, before adding: “And the famous Gldani Shaurma is also nearby.”

Being an expat means learning to live without a lot of comforts that we ordinarily take for granted back home – things like bagels, ripe Haas avocados, extra-dry Martinis, corn tortillas and enforced traffic laws. Sometimes we meet people who have a hard time adjusting to a life without Pop-Tarts and spend their leisure time whining about everything that’s not like home. Other times you meet a person like Andrew Moffatt. A physicist by education, Andy was crunching numbers as a bank analyst in his native Australia when it dawned on him that there was a hell of a lot more to life than making PowerPoint presentations and status reports. He turned his back on the safe and predictable career and spent the next four years traveling the world, picking up cooking tips along the way.

There’s no denying 2024 has been a year of political discontent that has permeated into all aspects of life in Tbilisi – including the culinary. Massive protests against the incumbent Georgian Dream party started in spring when it pushed forward a controversial law that many saw as emulating a Russian one and pushing the country towards Moscow-style autocracy. Even bigger protests broke out more recently when the ruling party announced they are suspending Georgia’s efforts to join the European Union, further fueling fears about the country’s orientation. For the CB crew, the political turbulence made this year one to revisit small backstreet joints that have withstood the test of time, such as Old Time Pub, the watering hole serving sausages and beer from Soviet times, and the pelmeni stronghold of Dumplings N1 that’s been serving some of the city’s best Slavic dumplings for over a decade.