🇬🇪 Tbilisi

Tony had a meal prepared by Meriko Gubeladze, a star chef at Tbilisi’s Black Lion Restaurant. They had spinach with walnuts and wild capers; pickled carrots; cheese curds with roasted hazelnuts and mint; roasted eggplant seasoned with coriander; kharcho, a stewed chicken cooked slow with ajika chili sauce, onions, marigold flower powder, and blue fenugreek, and cooked & served in a pumpkin.

Tony ate here with Paul Rimple, Tbilisi bureau chief for Culinary Backstreets. They had "salad with orange, almonds, and honey; grilled lamb ribs with pomegranate sauce; slices of fried eggplant wrapped around a walnut filling; chkmeruli, chicken slow-baked in an oven and then simmered in garlic and milk."

Tony had a meal with activist and journalist Tamara Chergoleishvili, founding director of Georgia’s Tabula Media. They had khinkali which Tony describes as “big, fat, juicy soup dumplings filled with spicy cumin-jacked minced beef in a hot, rich, potentially scalding broth”.

Tony ate here with chef Tekuna Gachechiladze, who is trying to modernize Georgian cuisine. I have also mapped the current location of this restaurant.

New site of chef Tekuna Gachechiladze's restaurant.