Early January is the start of Georgia’s real holiday season: the New Year (Jan. 1), followed by Orthodox Christmas (Jan. 7) and then the Old New Year (which follows the Julian calendar, falling on Jan. 14). In between those main celebrations, friends and relatives visit each other, and all of these occasions make something like a two-weeks-long feast, or supra. Tables are replete with all that the Georgian gastronomy can offer. This festive season ends the longest fasting period of the Orthodox calendar. Even though a big chunk of the population might not fast, hosts make sure to have on their table plenty of fish and meat prepared in various ways.

No neighborhood is complete without that friendly corner shop that often provides the perfect excuse to pop out of the house for a bit. And when that corner shop serves up the most delectable juicy khinkali and fresh drafts served up in freezer-chilled pint mugs, there’s a dangerous temptation to linger and indulge. Kutkhe literally means “the corner” in Georgian, a no-frills basement restaurant at the corner of two frequented streets in Tbilisi’s left bank district of Marjanishvili. Located just two streets down from Fabrika – the multifunctional art and social space that helped gentrify the former overlooked and disheveled neighborhood – we couldn’t help but pop in while out on some errands on a sweltering day, easily lured by the simple chalkboard outside that promised khinkali, beers, kebabs and fries served up in air-conditioned comfort.

There was a dowdy little joint in Batumi, Georgia’s Black Sea port town, where two middle-aged women churned out the most exquisite Adjarian-style khachapuri pies in an old pizza oven. It was a must-stop for every trip to the coast, as there were few places in Tbilisi that could scorch such an authentic acharuli. As the years passed, the seedy potholed streets that hosted a pool hall, brothels and our favorite khachapuri joint transformed into a gentrified neighborhood of gift shops and boutiques catering to the ever-growing number of tourists flocking to Batumi. Meanwhile, the boat-shaped acharuli has become one of the most emblematic dishes of Georgian cuisine and is not only found all over Tbilisi, but is also being served in New York and Washington, DC.

Snail khinkali? It might sound, at first, like an odd combination. On closer consideration of Georgian cuisine and history, however, it makes good sense. For one thing – perhaps the most important – they’re tasty, and we have yet to hear anyone who’s tried them disagree. The signature dish at Metis restaurant, which is – for now at least –the only place in Tbilisi one can have them, they remind us more of mushroom than of meat khinkali: savory, smooth, a little buttery, with some brightness from parsley and a hint of pastis. Metis’ logo, a snail with a khinkali for a shell, expresses the playful blend of French and Georgian cuisines that owner Thibault Flament is pursuing in close collaboration with his chef, Goarik Padaryan.

In February 2022, when Russian forces invaded Ukraine, after having already occupied parts of the country since February 2014, Georgians responded with anger and solidarity. Drawing parallels to their experiences with the Russian-backed breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, people in Tbilisi organized huge rallies in front of Parliament, gathered humanitarian aid to send to Ukraine, opened their homes to refugees, made solidarity borscht and posted signs in their restaurants and other businesses saying Russians were not welcome. The mood a few hundred kilometers west in rainy Batumi this March was more subdued – the protests were smaller (the city is smaller), and while Ukrainian flags and anti-war slogans blanketed the city, we didn’t see any of the anti-Russian, or even anti-Putin, signs, posters and graffiti that had proliferated throughout Tbilisi.

Once upon a time, Tbilisi wasn’t too kind to vegans – the reputation was sealed when a malicious attack in 2016 by “sausage-wielding” far-right extremists on the city’s then only vegan café made international headlines. Nonetheless, a handful of chefs and restaurant owners are determined to make a change. Tbilisi’s selection of vegan restaurants has increased since the attack, and these days, even those seeking a more gourmand fine-vegan-dining experience finally have an address to call on at Living Vino Vegan Restaurant and Natural Wine Bar. Living Vino’s Ukrainian founder Dimitri Safonov has long been acquainted with Georgia’s wine history – his first glass of homegrown Rkatsiteli was offered to him at the age of 12 by his grandfather, an amateur winemaker from now Russian-occupied Crimea.

When wandering around Tbilisi, we often find ourselves at a loss when looking to grab a quick, quality snack to fill our stomachs. As much as we love our favorite Georgian cheesy bread, sometimes we want a little something more than khachapuri or pastries. Many times, these inexpensive offerings are infamous for deceiving customers with various forms of cheap filling folded into the dough in lieu of real cheese. Then, of course, there is the ubiquitous shaurma (a transliteration of the Georgian word შაურმა) – an unfortunately tasteless descendent of the Middle Eastern shawarma. This dearth of quality street food and an abundance of disappointing snacks is an ongoing issue but, as seems to be the story the world over, some entrepreneurial souls realized they could fill this gap during the Covid-19 pandemic, offering quick bites via delivery and takeaway.

Mtkvari, the local name for the Kura River, divides Tbilisi. Until the launch of Fabrika – a disused Soviet-era garment factory turned into a trendy social-space-cum-hostel in 2016 – few gentrified souls from the city’s fancier shore crossed over to the left bank. Fewer still stepped out further than the central Marjanishvili neighborhood, making it past Dezerter Bazaar – the throbbing gastronomic heart from where most of the city’s fresh produce and meats originate. This is also where Leonid Chkhikvishvili buys fresh cuts of meat each morning for his restaurant Duqani Kasumlo, located even further north on the left bank in Didube. Here is a neighborhood where few travelers tread, except perhaps to quickly pass through to catch cheap intercity mashrutkas (mini-buses). But despite its overlooked location, Duqani Kasumlo has acquired semi-cult status for its kebabs in an area better known for its cluster of home improvement stores and the labyrinthine Eliava market, home to hawkers of used car parts and construction materials.

With 2021 drawing to a close, we have much to be thankful for. Though Tbilisi, like all of Georgia, still faces struggles with the continuing pandemic, the harrowing days of 2020 – with its curfews and restrictions on gatherings (especially painful for Georgians, who are in the habit of meeting in large groups of friends and family) – are long gone. Restaurants, bars and cafes have been open again since February 2021, with indoor seating available since May, though opening hours would fluctuate based on spikes in Covid-19 transmission. When eateries fully reopened and the final curfew was lifted, we remember walking through Dedaena Park with friends late one night, not so long after regulations had largely relaxed; people were everywhere, some picnicking on the grass, a great many milling about, just glad to be out again amongst people.

Amaghleba Street and its environs stretch like a long arm of the Sololaki neighborhood up into Tbilisi’s hills. The broad main street is lined with 19th-century brick buildings, some of them graced with the magnificent wooden balconies characteristic of Old Tbilisi. At No. 16 sits Terracotta, where a patinaed metal awning hangs over steps heading down into the small, welcoming restaurant and wine bar below. The warm earth tones inside evoke its history as a ceramics studio, and the vases, cups and plates on display are a direct inheritance of Tata Samkharadze, who took over her parents’ art space when they chose to close it in 2018. In its place, she opened a small restaurant a year later with cook Anna Burduli.

This story starts with a hamburger, a juicy, perfectly grilled patty between a pair of fresh, no-frill homemade buns and the standard trimmings. As burgers become part of the culinary landscape in Tbilisi, we find that many cooks have a tendency to get too slick with a dish that loathes pretension. But this place, Burger House, nailed the balance between originality and straightforwardness. While sopping the drippings up with finger-thick fries we saw a hamburger story in the making and filed the idea away in our bucket list of food tales. A year or so later, walking down Machebeli Street in Sololaki, we saw a little basement joint named Salobie Bia with a Gault & Millau (a French restaurant guide) sign above the door and decided to investigate further. Several lip-smacking meals later, we learned that the chef and co-owner of this place is the same guy who was responsible for those impressive burgers.

In March, as the teasing wafts of spring begin to fill the air, local farmers converge at the entrance of the Sunday bazaar in Garikula where they lean against their old jalopies with bundled fruit tree saplings and grapevine seedlings for sale. For someone who wants to start a little backyard vineyard with a handful of vines, the bazaar is a fine place to shop. More ambitious wine growers, however, need to go to a grafting nursery and place an order. In Shida Kartli, one of the largest is run by a family who has been nursing grapevines for generations. Kobe Cherqezishvili, his wife, Maia Dalakishvili, and their sons, Beso and Gio, tend to over 500 varieties at their seven-hectare nursery in Mukhrani, which they opened in 2004.