Georgian Food 101: What to Order First

Georgian food has quietly taken over the Adriatic coast, and if you're in Budva or Bečići this summer, you'll see it: khachapuri on café chalkboards, khinkali in delivery apps, Saperavi on wine lists. If it's your first Georgian table, the menu can read like a poem in a language you don't speak. Here's the short course — what everything is, what to order first, and how not to embarrass yourself with a dumpling.

Start here: khachapuri

Khachapuri is bread and cheese, elevated to a national argument. Every region of Georgia bakes its own version, and two of them matter most on your first visit.

Adjarian khachapuri (adjaruli) is the famous one: an open boat of dough, filled with molten cheese and topped — at the table — with a raw egg yolk and a piece of butter. You have one job. Take your fork, stir the yolk and butter into the cheese while everything is still burning hot, and keep stirring until it becomes a glossy cream. Then tear off pieces of the crust, starting from the ends, and dip. One boat feeds one very hungry person or two sensible ones. Here's ours.

Imeretian khachapuri (imeruli) is the quieter classic: a closed, round bread with the cheese sealed inside, cut like a pizza. No egg, no theatre — just the ratio of dough to cheese that Georgian grandmothers have argued about for centuries. Many regulars end up preferring it.

The khinkali rules

Khinkali are large, hand-folded dumplings — pleated at the top into a doughy stem — filled with spiced meat (or mushrooms) and, crucially, hot broth. There is a technique, and it exists for a reason:

1. Pick the khinkali up by the stem, with your hands. Never a fork — puncture it and the broth, the best part, ends up on the plate.
2. Bite a small opening in the side.
3. Drink the broth through the opening while it's hot.
4. Eat the rest, and leave the stem on your plate. Nobody eats the stem; the pile at the end is your scorecard.

Order five per person to start. At Oda they come in classic, veal, lamb and mushroom versions, folded that same day.

The supporting cast

• Pkhali — vegetable and walnut pâtés (spinach, beetroot), rolled into bites and topped with pomegranate. Fully vegetarian, and the right cold start to a long dinner.
• Badrijani — fried eggplant rolled around garlicky walnut cream. If you order one cold starter, make it this one.
• Kharcho — a thick beef and rice soup with ground walnuts. Between soup and stew; order it the first evening the sea breeze feels cool.
• Lobiani — khachapuri's cousin filled with spiced beans instead of cheese. The vegetarian sleeper hit.
• Mtsvadi / shashlik — meat over real coals from the mangal. The smell arrives at your table before the plate does.

Dessert and the glass

Finish with medovik — thin honey layers and sour-cream filling, rested overnight until soft. And drink Georgian: Saperavi if you want a dark, structured red; Rkatsiteli for white; chacha (grape brandy) if the evening deserves it. We wrote a short guide to Georgian wine if you want to sound informed while pouring.

A sample first table, for two

One pkhali or badrijani to start, one Adjarian khachapuri, five or ten khinkali, one plate from the mangal, one medovik, one bottle of Saperavi. That's the classic first supra — expect to stay a while; that's the point.

You can try all of the above at Oda in Bečići — steps from the beach, an easy walk or short ride from Budva. In July and August, reserving a day ahead is wise.