About Iakobis Ezo
The name honours Iakob Nikoladze — the 20th-century Georgian sculptor whose house-museum sits just around the corner from this restaurant in Tbilisi’s Vera district. Nikoladze trained in Paris under Auguste Rodin, which explains the Francophile touches scattered throughout Iakobis Ezo: the red, white, and blue crockery; the Lyonnaise salad on the menu; the unmistakable sense that someone here has eaten well in Europe and decided to bring that sensibility home. When the Artizan Design Hotel opened in 2024, Iakobis Ezo opened with it, and Tbilisi immediately paid attention.
The setting is spectacular by any measure. The hotel itself is one of the most considered design projects Tbilisi has produced in years — high ceilings, original architectural details, the kind of space that earns the word “hotel” without making a fuss about it. The restaurant occupies both an elegant interior and a cozy garden courtyard, and the transition between the two is seamless. In summer, the garden is the best outdoor table in Vera. In winter, the interior closes in warmly around you. Both work.
The kitchen operates as a neo-bistro, blending European technique with Georgian ingredients and instincts. Artisan khachapuri shares the menu with eggs Benedict, chicken liver pâté with cornichons, and a falafel salad that holds its own against any Middle Eastern competitor. The adjapsandali — a Georgian vegetable stew somewhere between ratatouille and baba ganoush in spirit — arrives as a reminder that Georgian cooking has always had a sophisticated vegetarian tradition it has never fully exploited. Here, it is exploited beautifully. The mixology bar runs cocktails that take Georgian chacha and wine as their base, with results that are creative without being clever-for-the-sake-of-it.
For a first date, Iakobis Ezo is nearly perfect. The setting carries the evening; the menu provides enough novelty to sustain conversation; the service is warm without being intrusive. For a proposal, the garden in the right season — candlelit, walled, private without being isolated — is one of the most atmospheric spaces in Tbilisi. For impressing clients, the combination of the Artizan Hotel address and the quality of the cooking signals precisely the right level of taste and confidence. This is a restaurant that opened knowing exactly what it wanted to be, and has delivered without hesitation.
Reservations are recommended, particularly for the garden on summer evenings. The restaurant is connected to a Michelin Key hotel — the Artizan is listed in the Michelin Key selection for Tbilisi — which should tell you something about the level of ambition at work here.