We are sitting under the tonic canopy of an enormous pine tree in a hidden Tbilisi garden, licking our lips over menu items that are neither European nor Georgian. When our dining companion informs us she will not share her trout tartare with adjika (highly concentrated spicy red pepper paste), we realize there will be no plate-dipping tonight. Just as we settle on our main courses, a woman in a blue chef’s jacket comes up to our table, beaming bonhomie, and asks if she can help us in any way. This is Tekuna Gachechiladze, the blue-eyed Tbilisi chef dedicated to changing the way Georgians understand their food culture. We are sitting at her latest culinary venture, Cafe Littera.

Editor's note: This is the first installment in our new monthly series, Tbilisi Sketches, with illustrated dispatches covering local spots in Georgia's capital. Contributor Andrew North is an artist and journalist based in Tbilisi who spent many years before that reporting from the Middle East and Asia.

Editor’s note: Tbilisi was a new addition to Culinary Backstreets this year, and as we look back on all the great eating we did in 2015, we can’t help but notice that so much of it took place in the city's Sololaki area. There’s a typecast in Georgia that when somebody wants to go into business, they open up a khinkali restaurant. There is a logic to that. About a million people live in Tbilisi, a city built impetuously along the hilly banks of the Mtkvari River. And the adoration every single one of these people has for this boiled dumpling is so reverent, it is as if they see Jesus and his disciples feasting on a steaming platter of kalakuri khinkali for the Last Supper as they bite a hole into the dumpling and slurp its tasty broth.