12 Best Turkish Restaurants in Tbilisi

A 7 AM opening is rare in this city, and it's the first thing to know about Pidecim. It's a halal Turkish kitchen above the bus station in Isani, baking pide and lahmacun in a wood oven and running daily soups and stews alongside the kebabs. Google has it at 4.8 from 113 reviews and tags the place casual and cosy, with families, groups and tourists at the tables. Come here when you're up before the rest of Tbilisi is. There's no printed menu, so ask the price as you order.

Nothing here is a sit-down dinner, and that's the whole design. The setup is a halal counter on Bezhan Kalandadze Street in Ortachala: a drive-through, a delivery service, no table service at all, and a 5 rating from 53 Google reviews. The menu crosses 3 cuisines on purpose, with lahmacun and pide next to pizza, khachapuri and shawarma. One reviewer puts it plainly: the chef makes everything from scratch in front of you. This is the stop for a dinner that has to happen in your hands, for 10 to 20 GEL, and not on a Sunday, when it's shut.

Shawarma turns up 127 times in this place's review topics, which is the sort of number that ends a discussion about where to eat. The shop is a small, casual, halal Hatay-style doner counter on Kote Marjanishvili Street, with no table service and a 4.5 rating across 453 reviews. Students, families and tourists make up the crowd Google records. The other argument for it is the hour: late-night food sits among the offerings on its listing, and you can take it from the counter, the drive-through or delivery.

You've finished a loop of Lisi Lake, nobody wants to drive back into town to eat, and this is the kitchen that solves it. Golden Moon is a Turkish place on Mzia Eristavi Street rated 4.3 from 71 reviews, and it's an open-air cafe rather than a dining room. The menu comes in Georgian and English, with Georgian dishes sitting beside the Turkish ones. Its review topics run food at 16 mentions, friendly staff at 7 and kebabs at 3. It stays open to 11 PM from Wednesday to Sunday, so a late table is on.

Some halal restaurants coast on being halal. This one carries 780 reviews at 4.4 and a topic list where halal food is named 75 times and lahmacun 19, which is a different kind of credential. It's on Davit Aghmashenebeli Avenue with outdoor seating out front, and Google files the atmosphere as cosy, quiet and trendy, with groups and tourists filling it. Doors open at 9:30 AM and shut at 12 AM, which covers breakfast, a long dinner and the shisha that takes 9 mentions of its own. The listing marks reservations as required, so call first.

Come here when the group can't agree: kebabs for 4 of you, menemen for the one who wanted breakfast at 7 PM, and kunefe for everybody at the end. Elit is a Turkish dining room on Davit Aghmashenebeli Avenue, 4.4 across 2,275 Google reviews, open 11 AM to 12 AM daily, with step-free access throughout, high chairs and free Wi-Fi. Google records the crowd as families, students, groups and tourists. One reviewer at 8 PM found the lamb chops and the doner already gone, so go earlier rather than later, and dinner reservations are recommended.

Sunday is the one day this kitchen doesn't cook. The other 6 it runs 9 AM to 10 PM on Davit Aghmashenebeli Avenue, selling itself on ev yemekleri, home cooking, rather than on the grill. Google rates it 4.3 from 820 reviews and files the room as casual, quiet and cosy, with families, groups and tourists at the tables. Come here when you want a quiet dinner rather than a night out, and get there before the 10 PM close. A catering business runs alongside it, the restaurant takes reservations, and the street parking outside is free.

A mall food court is not where you plan to eat Turkish food, which is what makes this counter worth knowing about. Pide Land works the Tbilisi Mall food court with halal plates: shawarma, pide, lahmacun and grills, 10 AM to 10 PM every day of the week. It rates 3.5 from 89 reviews. Of the newest, 2 of the 5-star ones name the grill and 2 of the 1-star ones describe food that arrived cold. Use it when you're already in the mall with an afternoon of shopping left, and order something that has to come off the grill.

A kitchen that has held the same corner since 1999 has had time to settle its arguments. Supra is the halal Turkish one, where Davit Aghmashenebeli Avenue meets Kote Marjanishvili Street, open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There's a wood-fired oven, outdoor seating and a private dining room, and Google puts it at 4.2 from 2,429 reviews. A 3 AM landing is the obvious use, and so is a group where half want breakfast and half want kebabs. Google records families, groups and tourists at the tables, and the listing adds high chairs, a kids' menu and free Wi-Fi.

The reason to take a table here is what sits in front of it: Abano Street, the sulfur baths its own Instagram gives as the address, and one reviewer's evening of samovar tea while dancers performed in the square. TbilisIstanbul is a halal Turkish kitchen that also cooks Georgian, which is why khinkali picks up 36 mentions in the reviews. It rates 4.1 from 2,429 reviews and doesn't shut until 1 AM, opening at 8:30 AM, or 9 AM on Thursdays. Service is the caveat: reviewers report waits of 25 to 45 minutes and a service charge of 15 to 20% on the bill.

Walk in without a plan and let the floor staff build the order: 2 reviewers did exactly that and named the results afterwards. Nasimi is a halal diner on Davit Aghmashenebeli Avenue, open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's cooking Turkish and Arab plates, with what its own description calls a wide selection of non-alcoholic drinks. The rating sits at 4.1 across 2,450 reviews. Come here at 6 AM or at 2 AM, the hours that rule out almost everywhere else, and you'll get free tea, which 2 reviewers wrote down.

One reviewer eats 2 or 3 meals here every day, which is the sort of habit a restaurant collects on its way to 3,948 reviews. Ankara Style is a halal Turkish room on Davit Aghmashenebeli Avenue, rated 4 out of 5 across them and open 8 AM to 1 AM daily. There's a step-free entrance, accessible seating and an accessible restroom, and Google files the atmosphere as casual, cosy, quiet and trendy. Groups and tourists are the crowd, and it suits a large party at an odd hour. Street parking out front is free, though the listing warns it's usually hard to find a space.