Eating Georgia: Khachapuri, Wine, and a Toast to Life

Georgia isn’t just a country tucked between Europe and Asia — it’s a place where food is the national language and hospitality is practically a sport. Nestled in the Caucasus Mountains, this small nation has spent centuries at the crossroads of empires — Persians, Ottomans, Russians — absorbing influences and turning them into something completely its own. Here, food isn’t just about sustenance, it’s a living archive of history, religion, and resilience. Even the simplest dish feels like it has a story to tell, whether it’s a peasant dish passed down for generations or a feast dish reserved for holy days.

Spend a week in Georgia and you’ll start to feel like it’s a place that has been hiding in plain sight. There are dramatic snow-dusted peaks that look like a backdrop for a fairy tale, villages where time seems to have stopped, and a capital city that hums with art, music, and the smell of baking bread. And then there’s the food — so warm and comforting that you find yourself slowing down just to savor it. Georgia has a way of making you forget about rushing, about schedules, about anything except what’s on the table in front of you.

The Supra: Georgia’s Endless Feast

To understand Georgia, you have to sit at a supra — the traditional Georgian feast. It isn’t just a meal; it’s a full-blown cultural ritual, almost like theater performed around a table. The table itself becomes a stage, crowded with dishes that keep arriving until you start wondering if the kitchen is attached to some magical portal.

You’ll begin with pkhali, jewel-toned vegetable purées made with spinach, beets, or beans, blended with walnuts and garlic until smooth and spreadable. Then come bright, herb-filled salads that taste as though they were picked just minutes ago, followed by mountains of khachapuri (more on that soon), platters of grilled meats, dumplings, and steaming stews.

At the center of it all is the tamada, the toastmaster, whose job is to guide the mood of the evening. The tamada doesn’t just say “cheers” — each toast is like a miniature poem, sometimes funny, sometimes serious, sometimes heartbreakingly beautiful. One moment you’ll be laughing at a story about someone’s mischievous uncle, the next you’ll be raising a glass to honor ancestors who defended the country centuries ago. The supra isn’t just about filling your stomach; it’s about weaving everyone at the table into the same shared story, if only for a few hours.

Khachapuri: Bread, But Transcendent

Khachapuri might just ruin pizza for you forever — and I don’t say that lightly. This is Georgia’s iconic cheese bread, and it comes in several regional styles. The most dramatic is Adjarian khachapuri, shaped like a little boat. It arrives at the table bubbling hot, with cheese spilling over the sides like molten lava. Right before serving, the cook cracks an egg yolk into the center and drops in a knob of butter. The ritual is to swirl everything together into a golden, silky mixture, then tear off pieces of bread and dip until there’s nothing left.

The first bite is almost overwhelming — stretchy, salty cheese; soft, chewy bread; a faint richness from the butter and egg. It’s comfort food, but it feels almost ceremonial. There are subtler versions too — Imeretian khachapuri is round and filled, Mingrelian khachapuri doubles down with cheese both inside and on top — and locals will happily debate which one is superior. But no matter where you eat it, khachapuri is Georgia’s warmest, most welcoming handshake.

Khinkali: Georgia’s Answer to Dumplings

And then there are khinkali, the soul of Georgian cuisine. These are enormous dumplings, pleated by hand with care and precision, each one like a tiny piece of edible sculpture. Inside is a filling of spiced meat — beef, pork, or lamb — mixed with onions, herbs, and just enough broth to make things dangerously juicy.

Eating khinkali is a skill. You pick one up by its twisted top, take a careful bite from the side, and quickly slurp the broth before it escapes. Only then do you eat the rest of the dumpling. The top knot is usually left behind on the plate as a kind of scorecard, proof of how many you’ve managed to conquer.

Sharing a plate of khinkali with friends becomes a kind of game, a slow, messy ritual that’s as much about laughter and conversation as it is about eating. And because they’re so hearty, they’re perfect after a long day exploring mountain villages or wandering Tbilisi’s winding streets.

The Gospel of Walnuts

One of the most surprising things about Georgian food is just how often walnuts show up — not just as a snack, but as the backbone of entire dishes. Satsivi, a cold dish of chicken smothered in a velvety walnut-garlic sauce, is a wintertime classic. Vegetable dishes like eggplant rolls are stuffed with walnut paste and dusted with pomegranate seeds, a combination that somehow tastes both earthy and bright.

Walnuts are more than just an ingredient — they’re a symbol of Georgia’s culinary philosophy: simple, natural, deeply flavorful, and tied to the land. They connect the country’s cuisine to its orchards, to its history, to the idea that food should be nourishing not just for the body but for the soul.

Wine the Old Way

Georgia is the birthplace of wine — they’ve been making it here for over 8,000 years, and they do it differently than almost anywhere else. Instead of fermenting wine in barrels, they use qvevri, massive clay vessels buried underground. The process creates wines that are cloudy, unfiltered, and often amber in color, with a wild, slightly funky taste that feels alive in your mouth.

Wine here is not just a drink, it’s a sacred part of life. At a supra, every toast is accompanied by a glass of wine, and it’s considered bad form to let your glass sit empty. There’s something almost meditative about sipping qvevri wine while listening to the tamada speak — it connects you to an unbroken chain of people who’ve been doing the same thing for thousands of years.

Markets and Mountain Roads

If you want to feel the pulse of Georgia, start in Tbilisi’s Dezerter Bazaar. Here you’ll find pyramids of spices in jewel colors, barrels of pickled vegetables, and churchkhela — strings of nuts dipped in thickened grape juice that hang like edible candles. The air smells of fresh bread, herbs, and wood smoke.

Leave the city and take the winding roads into the mountains, where tiny villages still bake bread in clay ovens called tone and families make wine in their own backyards. If you linger too long in one place, don’t be surprised if someone invites you into their home for tea — or more likely, wine — turning what was meant to be a short stop into an impromptu feast.

Where Food and Life Intertwine

By the end of your trip, you’ll realize that Georgia isn’t trying to impress you. It doesn’t need to. The food mirrors the country itself — warm, soulful, deeply rooted in tradition, and best enjoyed slowly. Every supra, every glass of wine, every dumpling becomes part of a memory that lingers long after you leave.

Georgia teaches you that food isn’t just something you eat. It’s a way of belonging, a way of connecting — to the land, to strangers who become friends, and to a culture that has been celebrating life at the table for centuries.