15 Best Italian Restaurants in Tbilisi

You want pizza, the table wants wine, and someone has brought the dog. Viola handles all 3: an Italian kitchen on Gogebashvili Street with a 5 rating from 360 Google reviews, outdoor seating and dogs allowed inside. The pizza is Neapolitan, named that way in 5 reviews, with a crust called crispy in 4 and prosciutto turning up in 6, more than any other topping. Google tags the room casual and quiet, and it's good for kids. It opens at 2 PM most days, later on Monday and Tuesday, and stays open to 12 AM.

The pizza is worth the trip on its own, and the kitchen runs to 1 AM, which settles most arguments about where to eat late. Savora is a women-owned pizza bar on Atoneli Street with tables outside and a 4.9 rating across 542 reviews. The listing highlights live music, and the crowd it draws is groups and tourists. Come here when a table of 6 wants pizza, wine and somewhere outside to sit until late. It takes reservations, and there are high chairs if the group includes toddlers.

On a narrow street off the centre, Tbilisimo does the version of Italian food meant to feel like someone's house: handmade furniture, a green-toned room and a marble fireplace with large candles on it. The menu, in the restaurant's own words, is home cooking with a modern presentation. It holds a 4.8 rating across 989 reviews, and the seating is wheelchair accessible. Come here for a slow lunch or an early dinner, since it runs from 10 AM to 11 PM, 7 days a week.

A hotel restaurant is an easy thing to walk past, and on Rustaveli Avenue that would be a mistake. Philosophico sits inside the Telegraph Hotel with an Italian menu built by brand chef Paolo Amadori, a 4.9 rating from 367 reviews, and one reviewer's verdict that it is a bit on the expensive side and worth it anyway. What reviewers write about after the food is the floor staff: welcoming turns up 7 times and attentiveness 3, with date night in 2 more. It's open 12 PM to 12 AM and takes bookings online.

Pizza and cocktails rarely get equal attention in the same room. La Gamba, a women-owned pizzeria on Vasil Petriashvili Street, gives them both: cocktails come up in 56 reviews and Italian pizza in 34. One reviewer who lived in Italy for 7 years calls the Neapolitan here the most accurate in the city. The crowd is students, groups and families, and outdoor seating gets 5 mentions of its own. Dinner reservations are recommended, and the kitchen stops at 11 PM even though the bar runs to 12 AM.

Sooner or later a week of khinkali and khachapuri catches up with you, and 2 reviewers say the same thing about Ratto: this is where they went for a break. It's an Italian bistro on Vukol Beridze Street with 1,606 reviews behind it, a courtyard named in 5 of them and a stylish interior named in 25. Come here when you want pizza and a michelada instead of another supra, or on a weekend for the brunch plate its Instagram shows, a potato pancake under salmon. Doors are at 1 PM on weekdays and 12 PM at weekends, and it keeps going to 12 AM.

This one is not in the old town, which is the only inconvenient thing about it. Alfredo runs a Southern Italian menu on Irakli Abashidze Street in Vake, and Google's tags for the room read cosy, quiet, romantic and upscale. The listing is blunt about the format: dine-in only, no takeaways. It holds a 4.7 rating across 1,294 reviews and draws families, groups and tourists. Get there early, since one reviewer found seating hard to come by, and the kitchen closes at 11 PM.

Reservations required is a phrase that tells you what kind of evening this is. Ambrosiano has been family-run since 2016 on Tamar Chovelidze Street, and its own description asks for business dinners, celebrations and romantic evenings rather than a quick plate of pasta. There's a private dining room, and Google flags the wine list, the tea selection, the coffee and the desserts as highlights. It holds a 4.7 rating across 1,152 reviews. Book the table, bring the group, and expect to be there a while: the room runs to 12 AM.

An Italian restaurant whose own pitch reads unapologetic love for Italian food is either overselling or telling you exactly what to expect, and the 4.8 across 245 reviews points at the second one. It's a dining room on Irakli Abashidze Street in Vake, the kind you sit down in rather than order at. Cosy place turns up in 3 reviews, welcoming staff in 7 and fresh food in 4. It runs 12 PM to 11 PM, and to 1 AM on Fridays and Saturdays, so a late table is on the cards at the weekend.

The move is the balcony, and one reviewer's tip is to book it ahead: there are only 2 or 3 tables up there. The pasta is rolled by hand every morning, in a restored 1896 townhouse in Sololaki, and the open kitchen is named in 27 reviews. Google tags the room casual and cosy, the crowd is families and groups, and dogs come inside. Lunch is not an option: the doors open at 2 PM, the kitchen stops at 11 PM and the room goes to 12 AM, 1 AM at weekends.

There's a wine shop inside, which is the clue to how the evening is meant to go. Pasta Osteria is a women-owned Italian restaurant on Nikifore Irbakhi Street with 903 reviews at 4.6, an enclosed courtyard in 2 of them and a sommelier in 4 more. Google flags the wine list, the cocktails and the desserts, and there's rooftop seating above it all. Service is the risk: 3 reviews from a single day in September describe waits of 30 minutes to an hour and food arriving cold. It runs 1 PM to 2 AM daily, and the booking form is on its own site.

Pasta finished inside a wheel of parmesan is either the reason you go or the reason you don't. Pastachi does it on Davit Aghmashenebeli Avenue, 11 AM to 1 AM every day, with 1,004 reviews averaging 4.5 and a member of the floor staff named in 33 of them. Google files it as a fast food restaurant as well as an Italian one, which is the register to expect. Reviews split hard: 25 name the pesto pasta and 18 the handmade pasta, while 2 more report a burnt pizza base and a bland plate.

Rustaveli Avenue is not where you expect to eat cheaply, and this is the exception. Di Roma sits at number 36 with outdoor seating, a 4.4 from 290 reviews and a Google band of 20 to 30 GEL. The catch is the timing: 4 reviews describe waits of 30 to 40 minutes, for the pizza and for the bill alike. It's good for kids and it takes groups, so a family lunch is the use case rather than a long dinner. Doors open at 10 AM and close at 11:30 PM, every day.

Over 30 pizzas on one menu is either a promise or a problem, depending on how decisive you are. Localino is a pizza restaurant on Zakaria Paliashvili Street in Vake with a 4.4 from 667 reviews, and Google flags the live music, the coffee and the desserts. The crowd it lists runs students, families, groups and tourists,o. Come here when it's late and the argument about where to eat has gone on long enough. The kitchen runs to 2 AM and you should budget 30 to 40 GEL a head.

A 20-year run is long for any restaurant in Tbilisi, and longer for an Italian one. Fiorino calls itself one of the first in the city, and it runs an Italian menu on Merab Kostava Street with, in its own words, Georgian hospitality attached. Cosy place turns up in 5 reviews, outdoor seating in 3 and khinkali in 3, which is not a word you expect on this list. It holds a 4.3 across 199 reviews. The listing says 12 AM, but one reviewer clocked the kitchen closing at 10:15 PM.