Keto, in pale green, with her daughter on the right, at a supra at the restaurant, looking toward Sighnaghi, as opposed to across the valley toward Azerbaijan. Photograph by Carla Capalbo.

 

2019 | Issue 104

Restaurants: Tibaani, Sighnaghi, Georgia

A Panoramic Feast

By Carla Capalbo

The Crazy Pomegranate
Pheasant’s Tears Winery, Tibaani, Sighnaghi, Kakheti, Georgia
tel +995 598722848 (or Keto at +995 595467716 or, probably best, tamriko@pheasantstears.com), pheasantstears.com/crazy-pomegranat
open by reservation only for a minimum of ten people
average price per person per meal 75 lari (Zedashe music and dancing for the feast 650 lari per group)

Ketevan Mindorashvili is up on her outdoor terrace, setting a very long table for a supra, a Georgian feast. She’s expecting a group of 24 for lunch at her restaurant, The Crazy Pomegranate, but she knows there will probably be more, so she adds a few places just in case. From up here, on a clear day you can see all the way across the valley of the Alazani River to the snow-topped Caucasus Mountains in Azerbaijan, with Dagestan’s peaks rising even higher behind them. It’s breathtaking.

The restaurant, and the Pheasant’s Tears Winery that hosts it, is situated at the southern end of the Kakheti region in southeast Georgia. This valley is a key area for grapes; it produces a large part of the wine that Georgia exports to Russia and beyond. The restaurant, which opened in 2018, is an integral part of the winery’s new cellar building. On the ground floor are rooms full of buried qvevri, the large clay vessels that have been used for winemaking in Georgia for at least 8,000 years. Above them is the winter restaurant, in a rustic, cozy room with a fireplace. But whenever the weather permits, people want to eat up on the terrace, where there’s a roof but no walls.

Ketevan, or Keto as she’s known, grew up just a few kilometers from here in Sighnaghi, a beautiful hill town, high above the plain, that was once an important stop on the Silk Route and a center for trades such as carpetmaking, leatherwork, and winemaking.

As a young woman, Keto’s passion was for music. She learned to sing the country’s traditional polyphonic songs; she also plays several instruments, and she dances. In the 1990s, after the Soviet era ended, she and her future husband, John Wurdeman, toured the country recording and filming the music being made in obscure villages so it would not be lost. She now performs many of those songs and dances with her musical ensemble, Zedashe. “Those trips were not only about music,” she says, as she places bunches of just-picked roses along the table. “As we explored parts of the country that were hard to reach during Soviet times, we also collected recipes and sampled dishes from many regional cuisines that were quite different from Kakheti’s. I love to incorporate them in my own cooking.”

It’s common in Georgian restaurants to find a somewhat limited menu of dishes: the ubiquitous khachapuri (cheese-filled bread), grilled meats, stewed beans, and vegetables enhanced with walnut pastes. Keto explains, “These are all delicious foods, and they are the things we eat daily at home, too, but I am also interested in rediscovering dishes that were part of our heritage in the past.”

These include vine leaves stuffed with lamb and rice and baked in a yogurt sauce studded with dried apricots and prunes; chickpea and beef stew flavored with fresh ginger; and tomatoes filled with wild mushrooms and seasoned with blue fenugreek, coriander seeds, and a mixture of fresh herbs. It all depends on the season. Keto creates the menu each day according to what has been grown in the garden, foraged in the surrounding countryside, or bought at the village street market.

Down in the kitchen, there’s always a festive atmosphere, in what many Western chefs would consider a bare-bones setup. Simple stainless-steel tables and shelves are stacked with bowls and pans, and the women take turns washing and prepping the ingredients Keto will assemble and cook.

Crazy Pomegranate only opens for group reservations (for a minimum of 10 people) as the supra is a laborious affair. Keto calls in women cooks from the village to help her prepare the many dishes that will make up the feast. The women laugh and chatter as they work. Many of the recipes call for lots of vegetables with their labor-intensive cleaning, trimming and cutting; also in need of cleaning are mountains of fresh cilantro, purple and green basils, dill, parsley, and celery leaves that will be added in abundant quantities to every dish.

“The Georgian table is never bare,” Keto explains. “When guests sit down they always find several dishes already arranged along the table, for three or four people to share. That way you never have to pass the food up and down the table.” I’ve been to several supras here and they follow a similar form, though some dishes vary according to the time of year.

To start with, there are platters of sliced cow’s- or sheep’s-milk cheeses, including the rare Tushuri Guda from the Tusheti highlands that is made in a sheepskin. Baskets contain chunks of the local bread called puri that is baked over burning vine embers in long crescent shapes in the clay toné (similar to a tandoori). For hers, Keto was among the first to revive an ancient variety of wheat called tsiteli doli, with low gluten content and great flavor. There are colorful dishes of salt-fermented vegetables: green tomatoes, slim hot peppers, whole heads of garlic, and blossoms from the bladdernut bush called jonjoli that will accent the other dishes in the menu.

As the guests settle into their seats, jugs of amber wine appear, scooped directly from the qvevri, made of local white grapes, such as Mtsvane, Rkatsiteli, and Tsolikouri. Platters of cold pkhali arrive: fried eggplant slices rolled around a garlicky walnut-paste filling; small balls of minced wild greens and beet greens mixed with the same paste; and chopped beets in the sour plum sauce called tkemali. Dishes heaped with bunches of tarragon, parsley, and scallions arrive, too, to eat just as they are with the cheeses. There’s a salad of mulberries, goat’s-milk cheese, and fiery arugula, as well as the classic cucumber, tomato, and herb salad without which no Georgian meal is complete. That’s usually served without dressing, as a palate-cleanser. Now hot, individual cheesy cornbreads called chvishtari arrive, crusty and golden on top. They go wonderfully with platters of charcuterie made in Sighnaghi from local, free-range pigs by Nathan Moss (an Englishman, married to a Georgian; their wedding supra took place on this terrace).

The meal is under way, and the first of the toasts is being made. At all Georgian feasts a tamada, or toastmaster, is elected. It’s usually the oldest male member of the party (though women now occasionally assume the role). The toasts punctuate the meal and bring the guests together with themes of love, friendship, family, and peace. The hot dishes are added to the table: chicken cooked with pounded walnuts and marigold petals; lamb stewed with handfuls of tarragon and poached sour plums the size of olives. Grilled meats and savory breads follow. Finally, there are bowls of yellow cherries and melon slices to complete the meal. Georgia has few desserts, and few people have room after a long feast.

Keto is an instinctive, generous cook, and her restaurant’s focus is mainly on traditional Georgian ingredients. But she’s also well-traveled and has found ways to incorporate Middle Eastern and Mediterranean ingredients like tahini and mozzarella into her cuisine. “Georgia has a rich and ancient food culture, but there’s no reason we can’t also be creative about modernizing it,” she says. A seat at her table, especially when there are singers from Zedashe, is a thrilling way to experience Georgia’s vibrant culture. ●

From issue 104

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