The atlas · A cuisine · Georgia — the South Caucasus, between the Black Sea and the Caspian

Georgian

Also Sakartvelo, Kartuli

Walnuts ground into sauces, fistfuls of fresh herbs, cheese breads and sour plums — cooking made for long tables and long toasts.

Where it comes from

Georgia sits where Persian, Turkish and Russian worlds meet, on old trade routes between the Black Sea and Central Asia, and its food takes something from each while staying itself. It's also wine country: some of the oldest evidence of winemaking anywhere has been found here, and wine is still made in clay qvevri buried in the ground.

The supra, the feast, is the heart of it — dishes brought all at once, and a tamada leading toast after toast. In Soviet times Georgian restaurants spread across the Union, and the food became many Russians' idea of eating well.

Where in it

  1. ImeretiWestern Georgia's heartland, around Kutaisi, whose young brined cheese, imeruli, goes into the round, closed khachapuri most Georgians think of first.Khachapuri
  2. SamegreloThe hot, humid west, with the fieriest cooking in Georgia: adjika, walnut-thick kharcho, cornmeal with sulguni, and khachapuri with cheese on top as well.KharchoKhachapuri
  3. AdjaraThe Black Sea coast by the Turkish border, around Batumi, where khachapuri comes as a boat, with an egg and butter stirred in at the table.Khachapuri
  4. SvanetiHigh valleys of stone towers under the Caucasus peaks, long cut off by snow for much of the year, with their own spiced salt and their own meat-filled bread.Kubdari
  5. TushetiRemote summer pastures reached by a single mountain road, known for sheep, cheese and plain khinkali — meat, onion, pepper and little else.Khinkali
  6. KakhetiThe wine country of the east, where wine is made in buried qvevri, churchkhela is strung up at the harvest, and meat is grilled over the vine cuttings.MtsvadiChurchkhela

How it cooks

Walnut paste
Walnuts pounded with garlic, spices and vinegar — the base of satsivi, pkhali and a dozen stuffings.
Herbs by the handful
Coriander, dill, tarragon and basil by the bunch, cooked in and eaten raw on the side.
The ketsi
A shallow clay dish that goes straight into the fire or oven — for beans, mushrooms and cheese.
Grilling over vines
Mtsvadi, skewered meat, cooked over the cuttings pruned from the vineyards.

Always in the kitchen

walnutscorianderdilltarragonblue fenugreekkhmeli sunelidried marigoldgarlicsulgunimatsonipomegranatetkemaliadjikawine vinegar

Cook from it

Tonight, with what's good in October

Its classics

GeorgianKhachapuriBread filled with salty, melting cheese — the everyday food of Georgia, in a different shape in every region.No one here has made it yetGeorgianKhinkaliLarge pleated dumplings of spiced minced meat that fill with broth as they boil, eaten by hand.No one here has made it yetGeorgianSatsiviPoached poultry in a thick sauce of ground walnuts, garlic and spices, served cold.No one here has made it yetGeorgianPkhaliCooked vegetables — spinach, beetroot, leek or cabbage — chopped fine with walnut paste and herbs, shaped into balls.No one here has made it yetGeorgianTkemaliA sour plum sauce with garlic, dill, coriander and chilli — Georgia's ketchup, for meat and potatoes.No one here has made it yetGeorgianLobioRed beans cooked soft, partly mashed, with coriander, garlic, spices and sometimes walnuts, often in a clay pot.No one here has made it yetGeorgianChurchkhelaWalnuts threaded on a string and dipped again and again in thickened grape must, then hung to dry.No one here has made it yetGeorgianKharchoBeef simmered in a thick sauce of ground walnuts, garlic and spice, soured with sour plum — a stew in the west of Georgia, a soup elsewhere.No one here has made it yetGeorgianKubdariA round, closed bread from Svaneti filled with hand-chopped beef or pork, onion and Svan salt, baked until the juices soak into the crust.No one here has made it yetGeorgianMtsvadiChunks of pork or lamb skewered and grilled over the embers of vine cuttings, served with raw onion, pomegranate and tkemali.No one here has made it yet

How it got here

1200s · from Mongolia to TushetiDumplingsThe Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century are often said to have brought the dumplings that became khinkali in Georgia's mountains — a story, not a certainty.Khinkali →
1600s · from The Americas to SamegreloMaizeMaize from the Americas reached western Georgia and largely replaced millet there — the cornbread and ghomi eaten with lobio grew from it.Lobio →

Cooked here

No one here has cooked Georgian yet.