About Azarphesha
An azarpesha is the ceremonial ladle used to scoop wine directly from a qvevri — the ancient clay vessel buried in the earth in which Georgians have fermented their wine for eight thousand years. The name of this restaurant near Freedom Square is a declaration of intent: the wine here is not an afterthought. It is the reason the restaurant exists.
Owner Luarsab Togonidze is a local collector, folklorist, and cultural preservationist who also runs a fashion brand reviving traditional Georgian clothing. He is, by all accounts, also a fine singer — and on evenings when the table is set right and the wine has been flowing long enough, the restaurant has been known to arrange traditional polyphonic singers and musicians. Guests have been known to join in. This is not an event you can schedule. It is simply what happens when a Georgian cultural enthusiast fills a room with the right people and the right wine.
The wine list is the largest selection of natural wines in Tbilisi — focused on smaller, artisanal qvevri producers, with amber Rkatsiteli, skin-contact Mtsvane, and aged Saperavi from producers who work without compromise. Pheasant's Tears wines are on the list, alongside treats from producers whose names appear nowhere else on a menu in the city. If you want to understand Georgian wine — its amber colour, its tannin, its kinship with the landscape that produced it — this is the table to sit at.
The food follows the philosophy: strictly local and wild seasonal ingredients, with a modern Eastern-Mediterranean orientation inspired by the food cultures Georgia historically traded with. Spring brings nettle pilaf and meatballs in sorrel sauce. Fall arrives with baked polenta and wild local mushrooms. Every dish on the menu exists because something grew and someone knew what to do with it. For impressing clients with cultural intelligence and a story they will not forget, Azarphesha is one of Tbilisi's most distinctive propositions. For a first date with someone who reads menus carefully, this is the wine list that starts a conversation that does not end at midnight. For solo dining, the counter and the bar are exactly the right place to sit with the wine list and let the evening develop without a plan.