Food in Georgia

At the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Georgia has one of the most distinctive and least-known cuisines in the world — built on walnuts, fresh herbs, cheese, and a tradition of hospitality that turns a meal into an event.

Georgian food sits where the Caucasus mountains meet the Black Sea, and it tastes like the meeting point it is: the warm spices of the East, the herbs and vegetables of the Mediterranean, and a deep local love of walnuts and cheese running through all of it. It is generous, savory, and endlessly suited to sharing — which is exactly how Georgians prefer to eat.

The supra: more than a meal

To understand Georgian food, start with the supra — the traditional feast that anchors Georgian social life. A supra is a table crowded with dozens of small dishes, hot and cold, all brought out together rather than in courses, so the table stays full from start to finish. It can mark anything from a wedding to a Tuesday.

Every supra has a tamada, or toastmaster, who leads the table through a sequence of toasts — to peace, to family, to those who have passed, to the guests. The toasts are heartfelt and often eloquent, and they set the rhythm of the evening. For anyone who loves hosting, the supra is a masterclass in making people feel welcome: abundance on the table, and someone whose whole job is to bring the room together.

Dishes to know

A few dishes are the heart of the Georgian table, and most travel beautifully to a home kitchen:

• Khachapuri — Georgia's famous cheese bread, and its unofficial national dish. There are regional forms, but the showstopper is Adjaruli khachapuri, shaped like a boat, filled with molten cheese, and topped with a raw egg and a knob of butter that you stir into the cheese at the table.
• Khinkali — large, twisted soup dumplings filled with spiced meat (or cheese, mushrooms, or potato). You hold them by the topknot, bite a small hole, drink the broth inside, then eat the rest — and leave the knots on your plate to be counted.
• Mtsvadi — Georgian grilled skewers, cooked over grapevine cuttings and served simply with onions and tkemali (a tart plum sauce).
• Pkhali — vibrant little pâtés of minced vegetables (spinach, beetroot tops, beans) bound with ground walnuts, garlic, and herbs, usually topped with pomegranate seeds.
• Badrijani nigvziani — fried eggplant (aubergine) rolled around a garlicky walnut paste; a staple of any spread.
• Lobio — a hearty stew of kidney beans with herbs and spices, often served in a clay pot with cornbread.

The flavor toolkit

What makes Georgian food taste Georgian is a handful of distinctive ingredients. Walnuts are everywhere — ground into sauces, pastes, and dressings until they're almost a backbone of the cuisine. The spice cupboard leans on blue fenugreek (a milder, nuttier cousin of the fenugreek you may know) and dried marigold petals, sometimes called Imeretian saffron, which lend an earthy warmth and golden color.

Two sauces appear again and again: adjika, a fiery paste of red peppers, garlic, and herbs, and tkemali, a bright, sour sauce made from wild plums that does for Georgian food what ketchup does elsewhere, only far more interesting. And for something sweet, there is churchkhela — strings of walnuts dipped repeatedly in thickened grape juice until they set into a chewy, candle-shaped candy, sold at every roadside stand.

A quick regional tour

Georgia's regions each bring something of their own. Adjara, on the Black Sea coast, gives us the egg-topped boat khachapuri and a love of butter. Imereti, in the center, has its own rounder, enclosed khachapuri and the fresh sulguni and Imeruli cheeses. Samegrelo in the west cooks the spiciest food in the country, rich with cheese and chili. And Kakheti in the east, the great wine region, is the land of hearty grilled meats and the supra at its most abundant.

Food and hospitality

More than anything, Georgian food is about welcome. There's a Georgian saying that a guest is a gift from God, and the cuisine is built around that spirit — too much food rather than too little, a table that keeps filling, and wine poured freely throughout. Wine is inseparable from the Georgian table, and Georgia's winemaking is a remarkable story in its own right: see wine in Georgia for the country often called the cradle of wine.