Tbilisi

Season's Eating: Holidaze in Tbilisi

The godzilla-sized tree of lights is up on Freedom Square and a gazillion more streamers of lights twinkle for eight kilometers down Tbilisi’s main drag, a clear, impressive indication the holiday season is upon us once again. The best thing about celebrating Christmas here is that tradition does not require us to buy a bunch of stuff for people that they don’t need. In Georgia, the real meaning of Christmas is indulgence in the gastronomic sense. Birthdays notwithstanding, the first feast of the season is on December 17, Saint Barbara’s Day. Being an Orthodox Christian country, the December 25 is only celebrated by expats and those Georgians looking for an excuse to feast.

Tbilisi

Gabriadze Café: Classic Revival

When we arrived in Tbilisi in 2001, there was one café/restaurant that was a beacon to those seeking an alternative to the traditional Georgian dining experience of stark rooms and banquet tables or greasy spoons with clunky tables and little stools. It was a funky little crooked house of pure originality that served the regular dishes, but with a personal homey touch that suited the place perfectly. Although it felt like a world apart, the art installation cafe was Georgian to the bone, being the creation of Rezo Gabriadze, the renowned artist, writer, sculptor and film and stage director.

Tbilisi

Pickled Prospects at Tbilisi's Dezerter's Bazaar

Among the deep array of goods found at Tbilisi's Dezerter's Bazaar, the focal point of our culinary walk in the city, is a formidable selection of colorful and tasty pickles.

Tbilisi

Wine Harvest Week: Kakheti Diary

We have each got a couple of buckets and a pair of gardening clips and we are standing in a dewy vineyard in the middle of the majestic Alazani Valley. The autumn air is brisk, fresh with the fruity smell of grapes and the sun is warm, clouds permitting. Looming northward like some godly guardian of this huge, precious grape basket is the awe-inspiring Greater Caucasus range. It is rtveli, the harvest, and here in Kakheti, families across Georgia’s chief winemaking region are busy making wine much like their ancestors have done for centuries. They pick, crush and ferment wine in kvevri, enormous ceramic urns buried into the ground, or in oak barrels. They add nothing to enhance the fermentation process, the crushed grapes are stirred several times daily until they feel the maceration process is completed. The chacha, fermented skins, seeds and stems, is separated and set aside for distillation later, while the wine is left to age until the New Year feast season.

Tbilisi

Shop Bagrati: Great Balls of Cheese

We’ve seen the doleful little building a hundred times, every time we cross Tbilisi’s Dry Bridge. With the seductive words chacha, grappa and vino hand-painted on the wall enticing us like a red-light district lures lonely sailors, we would move on, thinking, “one of these days.” Then one sweltering summer night our band got a gig at the biker bar next door to the sad little building. We had a half-hour to kill until show time, and we thought, surely, one shot won’t hurt. But instead of walking into a moonshine dispensary we found a little tourist shop packed with wine, ceramic vessels and assorted knick-knacks. The real discovery, however, were three refrigerators stocked with balls of craft cheeses.

Tbilisi

Art Café 144 Steps: Stairway to Gebzhalia

The 2010 makeover of Tbilisi’s old town broke the hearts of many locals and preservationists, who lamented the destruction of the neighborhood’s original 19th-century buildings and the fabrication of their cinder block replicas. The quarter hadn’t seen destruction on such a scale since the Persian ruler Agha Mohammad Khan razed the city in 1795. Instead of bemoaning the architectural tragedy, one local artist seized the opportunity to inject some positive vibrations into the precipitous hillside district by purchasing a small house underneath the 16th-century walls of the Narikala Fortress and turning it into one of Tbilisi’s coolest cafe-restaurants. Getting there, however, requires a bit of cardiovascular effort.

Tbilisi

Pkhali at a Summer Favorite Outside of Tbilisi

Phkali, in spite of it's meaty appearance, is actually a vegetarian-friendly Georgian specialty of beets, ground walnuts, vinegar, onions, garlic, and herbs. This version is from Armazis Kheoba, a favorite of ours just outside Tbilisi.