The 64 Best Places to Eat in Georgia

This is a rooftop restaurant and bar at the top of Batumi's Sheraton, where the main attraction is the 360-degree panorama of the Black Sea, with a steak or a burger as the supporting act. The menu wanders from T-bone and marble beef to sushi and baked sea bass, so everyone at the table gets to be difficult. Expect hotel-guest prices, date-night energy, and a Gault&Millau rating of 3 Toques.

The menu here was adapted from a 19th-century cookbook by Georgian writer Barbare Jorjadze, which is either a charming origin story or the most elaborate way to do recipe research. Either way, this family-run restaurant in Tbilisi revives dishes that had largely disappeared, cooked from fresh local ingredients in a room full of lace tablecloths, vintage crockery, and soft lamplight. A Discovery pick from the World's 50 Best.

A towering pine tree anchors the garden courtyard behind the Writers' House of Georgia, which is the kind of setting that makes you feel you've wandered into someone's very literary backyard. Café Littera is a restaurant where the chef has spent years reworking traditional Georgian flavors into something distinctly contemporary, with a menu that rotates often enough to reward return visits. Sololaki's prettiest table, arguably.

REPUBLIC is a fine-dining seafood restaurant with a panoramic sweep of Tbilisi, in a room by the French design firm Gilles & Boissier that blends local and contemporary touches. The menu runs to oysters, lobster, king crab, and aged prime beef, so dress like you're expecting a bill. The summer terrace pairs classic cocktails with Tsinandali Estate wines. It holds 3 Toques from Gault&Millau.

Veriko is a sit-down restaurant in an old wine factory in Tbilisi's Vere district, where the dining room doubles as an art gallery and a portrait of Veriko herself keeps an eye on your khinkali technique. The kitchen cooks Georgian classics with local produce, and the staff will happily explain the history of both the dishes and the wine. Gault&Millau gives it three toques. Expect to linger.

Alubali means "cherry" in Georgian, and the cafe is built around the idea of a grandmother's village yard, complete with fruit trees, plain wooden furniture, and enough fairy lights to guide a plane in. The owners toured the countryside quizzing older locals on how the old dishes were made, and the menu is traditional Georgian cooking, homey and generous. Gault&Millau gives it 2 Toques, and the cherry cake is the move at the end of a long lunch.

ATI is a hotel-restaurant on the 10th floor of the Sheraton, which means a view of Tbilisi's old town and the quiet confidence of a place that knows you'll look at it between courses. The kitchen runs a modern Georgian grill with a Silk Road streak, and the cocktails are taken as seriously as the fire. Gault&Millau gave it two toques. Expect a polished room with some art on the walls, where a jacket wouldn't hurt.

Bina 37 is a Georgian restaurant on the 8th floor of an apartment block, where the owner keeps 43 qvevri of homemade natural wine out on the terrace. It's a home-style setup in the best sense: traditional dishes, a steady flow of that wine, and a host whose philosophy is that a guest is a gift from God. It holds two Gault&Millau toques, which seems like a lot of recognition for something above a stairwell.

Bioli Hall is an event hall that also serves dinner, which is a combination that usually ends badly and here somehow comes with a nutritionist. The "Georgian Wellness" menu takes the old flavors and cooks them the healthy way, with produce from the Bioli farm and wellness guests getting dishes matched to their medical diagnosis. It holds 2 Toques from Gault&Millau, and yes, the khachapuri has been to a doctor.

Café Gabriadze is an old-town Tbilisi café where the interior, down to the furniture, was designed by the puppet theater director who built the crooked Clock Tower across the way. The summer terrace looks straight at it, so every table gets a view of a sight everyone else is photographing. The menu runs through regional Georgian starters and char-grilled meats, with qvevri wines and house spirits at the bar. It holds 2 Toques from Gault&Millau.

Cafe Stamba is a big all-day cafe in a converted warehouse, where tall windows let passersby watch you eat your khachapuri like a nature documentary in reverse. The hall splits into two small drinking corners and a large dining zone built around an open kitchen with a live fire, so dinner comes with sizzling as the soundtrack. The menu leans Georgian with a fusion streak, and it holds two Gault&Millau toques.

Clouds sits on the 19th floor in Batumi, which means the sea view is doing roughly half the work before anyone orders. It's a trendy bar-restaurant with grilled dishes, international and Asian plates, and cocktails that arrive fully mixed. Weekends bring live bands and DJs, so go expecting a night out with friends, not a quiet dinner. Gault&Millau gives it 2 Toques, in case you were wondering about the cooking.

This is the hotel restaurant at the Crowne Plaza in Borjomi, a mountain spa town of Gothic Eclectic buildings and small bridges over the Mtkvari. The menu pairs Georgian and European dishes in a calm, cozy dining room, which suits a town where everyone arrives to sip mineral water and be gently restored. Mushroom soup with truffle, beef fillet, and salmon anchor an evening here. Gault&Millau gives it 2 Toques.

Georgian House is a sit-down restaurant in Tbilisi where the menu runs through every region of Georgia and then wanders off into European territory, like it couldn't decide which cousin to invite. The decor and the music play the same old-meets-new game, so expect a tablecloth kind of evening, not a standing-at-the-counter one. Gault&Millau gave it 2 Toques, and the staff greet you like the table was already yours.

Keto and Kote are Georgia's answer to a famous pair, a couple from literature and cinema so tied together that the restaurant named after them makes the same promise. It's a traditional Georgian restaurant with a garden terrace and Tbilisi laid out below. Expect khinkali wearing pesto and meat in Roquefort sauce, which the old Georgian grandmothers would call a bold move. Gault&Millau gives it 2 Toques.

Lolita is a cocktail bar with a kitchen in Tbilisi's Vera district, tucked into an old building with red neon and an open kitchen where your mac and cheese or lasagna gets assembled in front of you. It has nothing to do with Nabokov, which is probably for the best. The garden out back hides you behind bushes while the street goes by, and weekend nights fill up fast. Gault&Millau gave it 2 Toques.

Palaty is a Georgian restaurant in an old Imereti-style house near Kutaisi's white bridge, where the name means a house with a limestone ground floor. Downstairs is dim and romantic with live jazz, upstairs is bright and calm, and there's a flowered terrace and a small yard for anyone who can't decide. A wine bar and cooking classes round it out, and Gault&Millau gave it two toques.

Royal Cellar 1878 is the restaurant at Chateau Mukhrani, a white castle in wine country that French architects designed for a noble family and that looks like it was built to be photographed. The cooking runs from traditional Georgian to modern takes on it, and the wine comes from the estate, so the sommelier's commute is a staircase. Expect a dressed-up lunch, ideally with a cellar tour first. Gault&Millau gives it two toques.

Salobie BIA is a sit-down restaurant on Rustaveli Avenue built around the bean, which in Georgia is a bigger deal than it sounds. The kitchen digs up older dishes too, including a millet-based one from before beans took over the national diet, so it's a bit like eating the sequel and the original in one sitting. The room is plain and calm, and the white plum sorbet with white chocolate is what dessert people mention. Gault&Millau gives it 2 Toques.

This is the restaurant at a winery estate in Kakheti, where the vineyards run in tidy rows toward the Caucasus and you eat Georgian classics with the mountains as a backdrop. Take the table by the fireplace in cooler months, or the balcony when it's warm. Expect a long, unhurried lunch, a wine list that happens to be written by the neighbors, and Gault&Millau's 2 Toques on the record.

Shushabandi is a fine dining room in central Tbilisi doing modern Georgian cooking, which means the khachapuri has been to finishing school. It holds two Gault&Millau toques, and the staff manage to keep the place feeling cozy rather than stiff. Call ahead for a table, since plenty of other people have the same idea, and bring some patience, because the kitchen takes its time. Dress like you mean it.

The Alphabet Tower is a restaurant up in Batumi's skyline-defining spire, where the Georgian alphabet is wrapped around the outside like a very tall, very literate DNA strand. The panorama of beach, port, and Black Sea is the main attraction, and it's priced with that in mind. The menu leans on familiar international dishes rather than local ones, and the room suits couples and anyone who wants to be nice to a visitor. Gault&Millau gives it two toques.

Tiffany Bar & Terrace is a restaurant and cocktail lounge in Tbilisi where the terrace looks out over Mtatsminda and the old town, which is the real draw once the sun starts dropping. The kitchen mixes Georgian and European dishes, leaning toward seafood, and the bar takes its mixology seriously. It's a dressed-up, see-and-be-seen kind of room, with Gault&Millau's two toques on the wall and waffles for dessert.

Adjarian Wine House sits fifteen minutes inland from the Black Sea, a wine-cellar-and-banquet-table restaurant where Georgian cooking arrives in quantities that assume you brought a large family. The setting does most of the talking, and the hand-rolled Georgian tobacco is there if you'd like to take the afternoon seriously. It holds a Gault&Millau toque, and summer weekends fill up, so book ahead.

Be Chic is a European restaurant in Tbilisi Sea New City, and it has the sharp, polished interior its name promises. It holds one Gault&Millau toque. The room is built for a long lunch with friends, the kind where conversation runs louder than the music and the service moves fast enough to keep up. The menu leans on steak in pepper sauce and a few eastern-leaning chicken dishes, so plan on dressing a notch above beach casual.

Brasserie Buvette is a French-leaning European restaurant on Gudiashvili Street, a block that already does a fair amount of the romance work for you. The room goes for gala, with enough polish that jeans feel like a decision. The menu runs on brasserie classics like a Chateaubriand with bordelaise and a roast chicken with Romesco, in a city better known for khachapuri. It holds one Gault&Millau toque.

Ghumeli is a modern Georgian restaurant on the top floor of a Tbilisi hotel, built around a stone oven in the middle of the dining room, so dinner doubles as a cooking demonstration you didn't ask for. Khachapuri and khinkali show up in reworked shapes that would confuse a grandmother and probably delight her. In warm weather the roof rolls back over views of Old Tbilisi. It holds one Gault&Millau toque.

HOME 11 is a family-run Georgian restaurant on pedestrian Tabidze Street in Sololaki, a short walk from Freedom Square. The cooking stays close to what a Georgian grandmother would recognize, just plated with more composure than she'd bother with. The wine list leans heavily on qvevri bottles from small producers, so it pays to ask the staff before pointing. It holds one Gault&Millau toque, and the room is calm enough to hear yourself deliberate.

This Tbilisi restaurant takes its name from kharcho, the walnut-heavy meat stew that every cook in western Georgia insists is made correctly only in their own kitchen. The menu follows the traditional route with a few European tweaks, so expect cheese rolls, veal ribs, and dolma in vine leaves rather than anything foamed. It holds a Gault&Millau toque, and the dining room is tidy enough for a proper dinner without requiring a jacket.

Munich is a restaurant in a 19th-century building in old Batumi, where a church, a mosque, and a synagogue all share the neighborhood, which is more diplomacy than most cities manage. There's a green yard and terrace, retro interiors, German beer, and a seafood-and-sauces menu. Screens cover every corner, so football fans eat well, and it holds a Gault&Millau toque.

Old Town is a Georgian restaurant in Tbilisi built around a garden terrace, where rose bushes and assorted greenery do most of the scenery work. The menu runs through the national greatest hits, with a barbecue streak for anyone who came to watch things get grilled. It carries a Gault&Millau toque, and the chef's stated method is cooking with the heart instead of the hands, which is a lot to ask of a heart, but the kitchen seems committed.

This is the dining room of a five-star hotel in Old Tbilisi, so expect tablecloths, a sommelier, and furniture by an Italian maker who clearly doesn't believe in understatement. The kitchen is Italian but keeps one eye on Georgian cooking, reviving old dishes and giving them new outfits. It holds one Gault&Millau toque, and it draws a mix of hotel guests and locals dressed for something nicer than khachapuri.

Sirajkhana is a Tbilisi restaurant built around the idea that Georgian and Persian cooking were always meant to share a table, and the owners did their homework in old newspapers and with wine historians to prove it. Expect a menu designed for passing plates around a big group, a serious wine list, and a one-toque nod from Gault&Millau. It's a dinner with homework behind it, though the homework is edible.

Strada Café is a casual all-day cafe on Marjanishvili Street, part of a small chain started by a team of chefs from New York, London, and Moscow, which explains the pancakes at breakfast and the pasta at dinner. Prices stay low, the plants are everywhere, and the wine list is longer than a cafe strictly needs. It holds a Gault&Millau toque, and the warm cherry pie is the dessert people bring up unprompted.

Tabla Saloon is a Georgian restaurant dressed up like a grand old salon, the kind of place where the table gets its name from a word that once meant "wooden board." Expect fresh-baked tone bread, songs, folk dances, and a sommelier on hand for the wine shop tucked inside, which stocks about 250 Georgian bottles. Families and business types fill it, and Gault&Millau gives it one toque.

Terrassa Askaneli is a Batumi restaurant from the family whose chacha, brandy, and pitcher wines have quietly made it onto shelves in dozens of countries, so the house pours come with some pedigree. It has three separate dining spaces, each with its own mood, and a menu that wanders between Georgian staples and the wider world. Live music nights and wine-tasting classes fill the calendar. Gault&Millau gives it one toque.

This is a casual barbecue spot in Tbilisi's old town, built around a Josper, the charcoal oven that cooks steak at a temperature most home grills only dream about. It's a quiet challenge to the Georgian tradition of Kakhetian shashlik, in a neighborhood where the shashlik is not exactly hard to find. The produce is organic and so are the Georgian wines. Gault&Millau lists it as a Selected Restaurant, and you get to choose your doneness.

Puri Guliani is a Georgian bakery with a full kitchen attached, which means the bread and the khachapuri-adjacent breakfasts share a roof and a very open view. You can watch the whole operation from your table, so nobody can claim the dough is a mystery. It's one of the few places in Tbilisi that takes Sunday brunch seriously, and locals and visitors fill it up in roughly equal measure. Gault&Millau lists it as a Selected Restaurant.