Sun Bread

Deep in the Saburtalo district of Tbilisi there is a jasmine-covered arch that frames a faded blue entrance. Stepping under the fragrant arch and into this unassuming shop, you will find yourself in the only Iranian bakery in Tbilisi. Sun Bread offers three lovingly crafted bread products made by the owner, Milad Babazadeh, who has over 20 years of experience as a baker. The most popular and unusual item on the list is their barbari bread.

Nikolozi

Restaurants aren't hard to come by in Tbilisi, but it is harder to find places that feel like eating in your grandmother’s living room. Walls lined with family photographs fading from color to black and white, an eclectic collection of paintings, a whole window dedicated to religious icons, and a menu that can change on a whim. This is Nikolozi, a tiny restaurant in Sololaki run by Dodo Ilashvili, a singular powerhouse who creates the food and the feeling all herself.

Graminea

“The future is in water and grain,” says Natia Kalandarishvili. She is the co-founder of Graminea, a minimalist but inviting shop in Sololaki whose mission goes beyond just selling the best sourdough in town. The bakery uses endemic Georgian wheat for their bread flour in an effort to support rebalancing the national wheat market – an unusual approach in a bread-heavy cuisine which relies primarily on imported wheat. Natia and her friend Salome Zakaraia started Graminea in February 2023. Now head baker, Salome was previously a makeup artist by profession, working on film sets. But like many others during the Covid-19 pandemic, she started baking sourdough while she was stuck at home.

Hitting the Right Tone

Tbilisi is a city of bread. This staple food has a permanent residency on every kitchen sideboard and a space on every modern table, and has been consumed in Georgia since the beginning of the 6th millennium BC. The demand for fresh bread has produced bakeries throughout the city; multiple in each area and sometimes as many as three along one street. A Tibilsian walking down the street carrying puri (bread) tucked under their arm should really be as emblematic as the baguette-bearing Parisian.

Recipe: Gozinaki, The Sweet Taste of January in Georgia

January is a busy time in Georgia: following New Year’s Eve are two weeks of visits and celebrations with friends and family that culminate with what’s known as Old New Year on January 14. The Georgian Orthodox Church still uses the ancient Julian calendar, which sees Christmas falling on January 7th and New Year on January 14th, and while the Old New Year is now a smaller celebration than the one on December 31st, it still marks the end of the festive holiday period and is celebrated by feasting with loved ones. During the comings and goings in this period, sweet, diamond-shaped pieces of a walnut brittle called gozinaki are an obligatory part of the welcome for guests. “Gozinaki is so important to Georgian families for the New Year,” explains Irma Laghdaze, a cooking instructor in Tbilisi.

Asi Khinkali: From the Mountains to Tbilisi

Salty, sticky, and above all pungent, dambalkhacho certainly isn’t for the fainthearted. But for iron-nostrilled khinkali-lovers, the soft, moldy cheese is one of the main attractions at Asi Khinkali, a cozy cellar restaurant in Tbilisi's Marjanishvili district. Made in the mountains, dambalkhacho is challenging to find in the city, but Asi Khinkali has it on the menu both fried and hidden inside their delicious khinkali. Friends Lasha Kozhrisvhili and Paata Jorjikia opened Asi Khinkali three years ago, right at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. “At the start, we had a little space just for online takeaway orders and then we moved here two years ago,” explains manager, Levan Shadize.