15 Best Georgian Restaurants in Tbilisi

You don't book this one for the cooking: it's a Georgian restaurant on Akaki Beliashvili Street where the dancing is what fills the room. The live music carries 110 review mentions, and no dish on the menu makes the topic list at all. The hall is big and loud music turns up in 11 reviews, so ask for a table off to the side if you want to hear each other. Come here when your visitors want the dancing, the food and a late finish in one booking. Doors run 12 PM to 1 AM, daily.

Most Georgian kitchens treat khinkali as one line on a long menu. Here it's the whole menu: 10 kinds, boiled and fried, savoury and sweet, in a basement room off Gorgasali Square. The listing calls it the first khinkali restaurant in Tbilisi, holds it at 4.9 from 6,541 reviews and tags the room cosy, quiet and good for kids. Bring the person who's never eaten one; they'll get the whole range in a single sitting. Dinner reservations are recommended, and its Instagram says booking a table costs nothing.

Some Georgian restaurants are known for a room. This one is known for a fried pastry, and it has been at the same Avlabari address since 1993. The waiters get called polite in 18 reviews, the listing holds 4.9 from 2,553 of them and its one highlight is the wine list. It's open 11 AM to 2 AM daily, dogs are allowed at the outdoor tables and the parking outside costs nothing. Come here when your dinner starts at 11 PM, the table is family and nobody is dressing up.

Conili is the one people come back to. 3 reviewers say they returned inside the same trip, which on a street this heavily visited is the whole recommendation. It's a Georgian bistro with a wine bar folded in, on Abano Street, holding 4.9 from 938 reviews. Its own description promises Georgian courses alongside local wine and produce, and the wine recommendation comes up in 13 reviews. Come here when you want the classics done carefully, book online, and eat between 11 AM and 11 PM.

This one has a decade behind it, and the dance programme is still what fills the room. It's huge and heavily decorated, colourful enough that 11 reviewers say exactly that, and the folk dances carry 58 mentions with the Georgian songs on 13. Live music is the single biggest thing reviewers write about, at 251 mentions. Bring the people who want the whole Georgian evening, not the quiet plate of khinkali you'd planned. It's open 12 PM to 1 AM on Giorgi Tsabadze Street.

Balcony seating comes up in 418 reviews, which tells you what the booking is really for. Its Instagram calls that balcony one of the most beautiful views of Old Tbilisi, and Google files the room as cosy, quiet, romantic and trendy. The name is a wine, the one the restaurant's own description calls the most famous in Georgia, and the list is built around it. The bar side runs to coffee, tea and cocktails, so the table works for dessert as well as dinner. Ask for the balcony when you book; service runs 1 to 11 PM.

You go down to get in, which is the joke in the name. The sun never reached this part of the building, so it held a wine cellar for centuries; now it holds a Georgian kitchen with a wine list attached. Pleasant music turns up in 10 reviews and jazz in 6. Above the cellar there's terrace and rooftop seating, and a private room its Instagram runs as a VIP room for celebrations. Book before you go, because the listing marks reservations required, and count on 20 to 60 GEL and an 11:30 PM close, 11 PM on Mondays.

The point of this one is where it is: 2 floors of glass on Kazbegi Avenue, an enclosed terrace and room for about 200 guests. The concept follows the Beer Square on Beliashvili Street, one of the Tsiskvili group's first rooms. Its own line is that the traditional dishes now sit in the middle of the city. Come here when the group is large, the order is meat and you're not going home early. It holds 4.9 from 550 reviews and the doors stay open to 1 AM.

Its own description sells the trip rather than the dish: lunch or dinner, a glass of wine, the view, in any season. That trip is out to Tskneti, beyond the city, so this is a meal you plan around the journey. Live music comes up in 19 reviews, the fireplace in 6 and cosiness in 8, so there's a winter version of this and a summer one. Save it for the day with nothing scheduled after it.

The kitchen is not hidden here. One reviewer's note is that you can see into it from your table, which also tells you how small the room is. It's on Vasil Barnov Street, soft-lit and quiet, with unobtrusive music and an intimate setting both at 2 mentions in the review topics. Google files it as popular for solo dining alongside lunch and dinner, with groups in the crowd and a good-for-kids mark on the listing. Doors are 12 to 11 PM, bookings go through its online form, and a meal is 20 to 60 GEL.

Dinner can start at midnight here and still be dinner, because the kitchen takes orders until 1:30 AM and the doors stay open to 2 AM. It's on Pkhovi Street by Orbeliani Square, and the menu runs wide: handmade khinkali and Adjarian khachapuri next to grilled meat, seafood, Georgian wine and its own cocktails. Pasta and pizza turn up on its Instagram. Shisha is the most named thing on the listing at 33 mentions, with welcoming staff on 32. Its own description lists celebrations next to dinner, and you book by WhatsApp rather than through a form.

Charru's own description names kebabs and mtsvadi as the specialities, so start your order there. Pork kebab is what reviewers name back most at 11 mentions, with grilled chicken on 7, and chicken skewers and grilled vegetables on 6 each. Kind staff is the most mentioned thing on the whole listing at 39 reviews, well ahead of any dish. It isn't a unanimous room: 2 of the newest reviews mark the food down. Doors are 12 PM to 12 AM every day and there's no booking link on the listing.

Reviews of Kneina are about 2 things, and the food is only one of them. History carries 199 mentions, the historical place another 26 and the building itself 18, and the hostess's tour of it turns up 5 times. The kitchen is the part that splits the room: one reviewer's summary is that the atmosphere carries what the food doesn't. Their seat was one of the wooden tables out on the street, over a glass of Georgian wine. Outdoor seating has 10 mentions of its own, and the room runs 1 PM to 12 AM with tables through its booking page.

Ranina takes the whole table, and that's rarer than it sounds. Google lists a kids' menu, high chairs and changing tables, dogs allowed inside as well as out, and a crowd it files as family-friendly and LGBTQ+ friendly. It identifies as women-owned and sits on Pkhovi Street near Orbeliani Square, with outdoor seating and a quiet, cosy room on the listing. European dishes run next to the Georgian ones for whoever at your table has hit their khinkali limit. Reservations are required, the doors run 12 PM to 1 AM, and a meal is 30 to 80 GEL.

Wine first, dinner second. Wine recommendations pull 48 mentions here, ahead of any dish, and wine tasting another 12. The list leans on rare natural and organic bottles from across Georgia, and natural wines take 18 mentions of their own. The room is a 19th-century townhouse that its own description says once housed Alexandre Dumas, with an intimate garden off it in the Plekhanovi district. Doors open at 3 PM, dinner starts at 6 PM, and on Friday and Saturday you've got until 1 AM.