Why Georgian Food Is Everywhere Right Now – 10 Dishes Worth Discovering

If your TikTok feed has recently filled up with boat-shaped breads overflowing with molten cheese, enormous twisted dumplings and people enthusiastically stirring egg yolks into pools of butter, you have probably stumbled across Georgian food.

The cuisine of Georgia — the country sitting between the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains — suddenly feels as though it is everywhere. And once you start looking at what Georgians actually eat, it isn’t difficult to understand why.

This is food built around bread, cheese, walnuts, garlic, herbs, slow-cooked meat and vegetables, with pomegranate scattered liberally over the top. There are dumplings made for eating with your hands, bubbling cheese breads designed for tearing and sharing, and dishes where garlic is treated less as a seasoning and more as a main ingredient.

In other words, Georgian food was practically made for social media long before social media existed.

But there is considerably more to it than a spectacular cheese pull. Georgia has an extraordinarily rich food and wine culture, shaped by its geography and centuries of influences from Europe, the Middle East and Western Asia.

If Georgian food keeps appearing on your feed and you’re wondering what you should actually try, start here.

1. Adjarian Khachapuri

This is the dish responsible for a fair amount of Georgian food’s current social-media appeal.

Khachapuri is essentially Georgian cheese bread, although describing it that way doesn’t quite do it justice. There are numerous regional versions, but Adjarian khachapuri — or adjaruli khachapuri — is the spectacular boat-shaped version you’re most likely to recognise.

The bread is formed into an open boat and filled with Georgian cheeses before being baked until golden and bubbling. An egg is added towards the end of cooking, followed by a generous knob of butter.

And then comes the good bit.

You mix the soft egg and melting butter through the hot cheese, tear pieces from the bread around the outside and dip them straight into the middle.

It’s messy, excessive and completely irresistible.

2. Khinkali

If khachapuri is Georgia’s answer to the ultimate cheese bread, khinkali are its magnificent contribution to the dumpling world.

These large pleated dumplings traditionally contain seasoned meat, herbs and a little liquid which turns into broth as they cook.

There is also a particular technique to eating them.

Pick the dumpling up by its twisted top, take a small bite from the side and drink the hot broth before eating the rest. The doughy knob at the top is traditionally used as a handle and can be left on the plate.

Vegetarian versions filled with mushrooms, potatoes or cheese are also common.

They’re substantial, juicy and exactly the sort of food where eating them correctly becomes half the fun.

3. Shkmeruli – Georgian Garlic Chicken

Garlic lovers may have found their new favourite chicken dish.

Shkmeruli originated in the mountainous Racha region and traditionally combines roasted or fried chicken with an unapologetically garlicky sauce.

Depending on the preparation, you’ll find versions made with milk or cream and others where the sauce is considerably simpler. Either way, garlic is very much the point.

The chicken arrives surrounded by the hot sauce, ready to be attacked with plenty of bread.

This isn’t subtle cooking. It is rich, comforting and gloriously garlicky.

4. Badrijani Nigvzit – Aubergine with Walnuts

Georgian cuisine does particularly wonderful things with walnuts.

Badrijani nigvzit consists of thin slices of aubergine, usually fried until soft, wrapped around a deeply savoury walnut filling flavoured with garlic and Georgian spices.

The little aubergine rolls are frequently finished with jewel-like pomegranate seeds and fresh herbs.

It’s one of those dishes that looks beautiful on a table but also demonstrates something important about Georgian cooking: vegetables aren’t treated as an afterthought.

Walnuts, herbs, spices and acidity turn relatively simple ingredients into something much more interesting.

5. Pkhali

A Georgian table can be extraordinarily colourful, and pkhali is partly responsible.

Rather than one specific recipe, pkhali describes a family of vegetable dishes in which cooked vegetables are combined with ground walnuts, garlic, herbs and spices.

Spinach and beetroot are particularly striking versions, although cabbage and other vegetables can also be used.

They’re often shaped into small portions and topped with pomegranate seeds or walnuts before being served as part of a larger spread.

If your impression of Georgian cuisine so far is cheese, bread and meat, pkhali is a good reminder of just how important vegetables, herbs and nuts are to the country’s food.

6. Lobio

At first glance, a pot of beans might struggle to compete with molten khachapuri for TikTok attention.

Don’t dismiss lobio.

This traditional Georgian bean dish is usually made with kidney beans and flavoured with onions, herbs and spices. Recipes vary considerably between households and regions, and it can be served hot or cold.

One of the most comforting versions arrives in a clay pot alongside mchadi, a Georgian cornbread traditionally made from cornmeal and water.

It’s rustic, inexpensive food rather than a showstopper — and exactly the sort of dish that tells you far more about how people actually eat.

7. Chkmeruli Isn’t the Only Chicken Worth Knowing – Meet Chakhokhbili

Another Georgian dish that deserves more attention is chakhokhbili, a rich chicken stew cooked with tomatoes, onions and generous quantities of fresh herbs.

Historically the dish was associated with pheasant — its name is connected to the Georgian word for the bird — but chicken became the everyday choice.

The result is fragrant rather than heavy, with coriander and other herbs bringing freshness to the tomato-rich sauce.

It’s also one of the easier Georgian dishes to imagine making regularly at home.

8. Kharcho

Kharcho brings together several flavours that appear repeatedly in Georgian cuisine: meat, walnuts, herbs, spices and sourness.

Versions differ, but the dish is commonly associated with beef and rice in a richly flavoured soup or stew, often sharpened with sour plum.

That sour element is important.

Georgian food frequently balances richness with tart flavours from ingredients such as pomegranate and tkemali, the country’s distinctive plum sauce. The result is food that can be deeply comforting without simply tasting heavy.

9. Mtsvadi – Georgian Barbecue

Georgia has its own formidable answer to meat cooked over fire.

Mtsvadi is skewered meat — traditionally including pork, although other meats are used — grilled over hot coals.

The beauty is in its simplicity. Rather than burying good meat beneath elaborate sauces, the focus is on smoke, fire and the flavour of the meat itself.

It is commonly eaten with raw or lightly dressed onions and Georgian sauces, including tart tkemali.

If British summer barbecue culture ever discovers Georgian food properly, mtsvadi deserves to be everywhere.

10. Churchkhela

And finally, the Georgian sweet that can look rather mysterious when you first encounter it.

Churchkhela is made by threading nuts — commonly walnuts — onto string before repeatedly dipping them into a thickened grape mixture and allowing them to dry.

The finished sweets hang in long colourful strands and are sometimes casually described as “Georgian Snickers”, although that doesn’t really capture what they are.

They’re chewy, nutty and naturally connected to another enormous part of Georgian culture: grapes.

Georgian Wine Deserves Its Own Conversation

You can’t really talk about Georgian food without mentioning wine.

Georgia has one of the world’s oldest continuous winemaking traditions, with archaeological evidence of grape winemaking in the region stretching back thousands of years.

Particularly fascinating is the traditional qvevri method.

Qvevri are enormous egg-shaped earthenware vessels which are buried underground and used for fermenting and ageing wine. The technique remains an important part of Georgian wine culture and is recognised by UNESCO as part of the country’s intangible cultural heritage.

Skin-contact white wines made using traditional methods can produce the amber or orange wines that have become increasingly fashionable elsewhere in the wine world.

What looks like a modern natural-wine trend has, in Georgia, been happening for generations.

Why Georgian Food Suddenly Feels So Current

There is an obvious reason Georgian food works on TikTok.

Khachapuri gives you the cheese pull. Khinkali gives you the dumpling reveal. Churchkhela looks unusual enough to make you stop scrolling. Georgian feasts arrive at the table covered in colour, bread, herbs and pomegranate.

But social media only explains why more people are seeing the food. It doesn’t explain why they’re interested once they do.

Georgian cooking sits very comfortably with the way many of us want to eat now: big sharing tables rather than individually plated food, plenty of vegetables alongside meat, punchy herbs, fermented flavours, good bread and dishes that encourage everyone to get involved.

It can be indulgent without being fussy and impressive without relying on expensive ingredients.

Most importantly, it looks like food you’d actually want to eat.

What Should You Try First?

If you’re encountering Georgian food for the first time, ordering khachapuri is almost compulsory. Follow it with khinkali, something fresh or walnut-heavy such as pkhali or badrijani nigvzit, and a meat dish or stew to share.

Add a bottle of Georgian wine if you can find one.

Because while TikTok might currently be helping Georgian food find a much bigger audience, this isn’t a cuisine invented for a trend.

The rest of us are simply catching up.