Restaurants

By Guy Dimond

‘Tamada’ means ‘host’, or ‘toastmaster’ in Georgian. Feasting, entertaining guests and toasting is clearly serious business in this part of the Caucasus. It’s something they’ve been doing for millennia, having had plenty of opportunity to raise their glasses to the departing armies of (among others) the Mongols, the Persians, the Ottomans, and – more recently, and still not entirely successfully – the Russians.

A predominantly Christian country with Islamic neighbours, Georgia’s long been a significant wine producer. During Soviet rule, much of that wine went north, to Mother Russia. Now, some of this wine finds its way to a little neighbourhood restaurant in St John’s Wood where you can raise your glass of rkastiteli (an ancient white grape variety) or saperavi (a red variety). They’re made into good wines, characterful, and not expensive.

It’s a good idea to get your drink order in first, because on our two visits, we found the service slow and unpractised. This is not a place to come if you’re in a hurry to eat. On one occasion it was nearly an hour before the first food appeared, and the arrival of two tables of six resulted in service slowing to the dripping speed of an old bottle of pomegranate molasses.

So why did we go back a second time? Because the food here’s unusual, very well-made, and – I imagine – what good Georgian home cooking must be like. Take, for example, the dish called chaqapuli. Slow-cooked stews are popular in Georgia and these flavours are the real deal, as tkemali – sour plum sauce, the universal condiment in Georgia – is added, together with lots of tarragon and other fresh herbs. This combination of meat and fruit has echoes of Iranian cuisine, but the dish is hearty in the way of cuisines from further north.

Walnuts are a key ingredient in Georgian cooking. They are used in the dish called sacivi, where chicken pieces are immersed in a walnut sauce – not the dense sauce you might imagine, but a light, almost soup-like consistency with a taste of walnut and Georgian spice mixtures that include fenugreek and coriander. Accompanying this dish is a dollop of polenta. Under Ottoman rule, maize – originally from the New World – became a staple around the ‘polenta belt’, because unlike more valuable rice or wheat, it wasn’t taxed. When the Ottomans left, the maize stayed.

The main courses are the highlights of Tamada’s menu, but the starters are good too. Many of them are familiar from Mediterranean and Black Sea cuisines – meze, stuffed aubergines, blinis and borscht – but khachapuri bread is distinctively Georgian. It’s a freshly-made flatbread filled with melted cheese, but this version is vastly superior to any London bedsit version of cheese-filled pitta bread. There are none of the elaborate sweets of the Middle East or Turkey in Georgia; walnuts are used to make the nutty walnut cake called ideali.

Other dishes you might want to try include an excellent Georgian ratatouille – a main course vegetarian dish – called ajapsandali; khinkali, the Georgian version of meat-filled dumplings; and an interpretation of the veal and potato dish originating from Russia called jarkoe. According to the menu these last two ‘require 45 minutes’. I think that means three-quarters of an hour on top of the standard wait. Very good and interesting food – but patience is required.

Time Out London Issue 2034: August 13-19 2009