About Ninia's Garden
There is a particular quality of evening light in Old Tbilisi — warm, diffuse, almost amber — that falls differently in a courtyard than it does anywhere else in the city. At Ninia's Garden on Uznadze Street in Chughureti, that light arrives through a canopy of grape vines, filters past a cherub fountain, and settles on tables where Chef Meriko Gubeladze is doing something quietly significant to Georgian cuisine.
Gubeladze's cooking is rooted in the Georgian tradition but reaches eastward without apology. The influence of Middle Eastern flavour profiles — the careful use of pomegranate molasses, the appearance of slow-cooked pulses with spice blends that carry faint echoes of Levantine cooking — sits alongside entirely Georgian preparations with such confidence that the menu feels like a single coherent vision rather than a fusion experiment. The result is a restaurant that feels deeply Georgian and genuinely unlike any other in the city.
The setting is Ninia's Garden's second act of confidence. The interior is housed in a heritage brick building with exposed stone walls and an open kitchen; the covered atrium-courtyard beyond is draped in climbing vines and lit by warm hanging lanterns; and the backyard, with its cherub fountain and hand-painted wall mural, functions as a final dining room that feels almost private. Each space has a different temperature of intimacy. This is architecture that serves dinner.
Signature dishes include the pâté with beetroot confit, served with house-baked bread that arrives still warm; the rabbit with walnut sauce and fried polenta — a dish that reframes the Georgian walnut tradition through an entirely new lens; and the veal shank with cheesy mash, slow and generous and deeply satisfying. The tomato salads in high summer, dressed with nothing but good salt and herbs from the garden, are the kind of dish that inspires loyalty. The wine list focuses on Georgian naturals, with amber qvevri wines from small producers that pair with the menu's complexity.
For a first date, the sequence of courtyard spaces — intimate without being claustrophobic, beautiful without being theatrical — creates exactly the conditions for a long dinner that neither person wants to end. For a proposal, the backyard table at night, under vines and lantern light, is among the most romantic spots in Tbilisi. For a birthday, the generosity of the cooking and the warmth of the service make a celebration feel genuinely personal. The team here is unpretentious, knowledgeable, and clearly happy to be working in this kitchen — which is its own form of hospitality.