After years of rediscovering its own identity, the Georgian capital is finally stepping onto the global cultural stage, confidently and on its own terms.

In recent years, Tbilisi has emerged as one of Europe&rsquo;s most compelling cultural hubs&mdash;an unlikely creative nexus where centuries-old traditions collide with a restless, innovative spirit. The Georgian capital has long been known for its layered history, situated between empires along ancient trade routes. But the seeds of its cultural reinvention were planted two decades ago: The Rose Revolution of 2003, which ousted Eduard Shevardnadze and ushered in a wave of reform, set the stage for a broader cultural awakening&mdash;one that accelerated after the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, which sharpened Georgia&rsquo;s national identity and Western ambitions. Today, that energy feels fully realized, fueled by designers, chefs, entrepreneurs, and artists who are redefining what Georgian culture will look like in the future.
Across the city, former Soviet factories, publishing houses, and communal apartments have been reborn as cultural eco-systems&mdash;spaces where hospitality, design, music, food, and art overlap. Visionaries behind some of Tbilisi&rsquo;s biggest hospitality projects have helped transform forgotten buildings into social living rooms. Designers draw inspiration from the city&rsquo;s contrasts&mdash;its Soviet modernism, ornate 19th-century architecture, and deeply rooted craftsmanship. Meanwhile, chefs and winemakers are leading a culinary renaissance that reconnects Georgia&rsquo;s ancient food and wine traditions with a new, global sensibility.
What makes Tbilisi&rsquo;s cultural moment particularly distinctive is its sense of fearless experimentation. After decades in which tradition was frozen under Soviet rule, many Georgians now see culture as something living&mdash;something to reinterpret, challenge, and expand. The result is a city that feels both dynamic and deeply creative, where a natural wine bar might sit next to a Soviet relic, and where underground music venues and avant-garde galleries coexist with ancient Orthodox churches.

For the people shaping it&mdash;from hospitality innovators and designers to food writers and chefs&mdash;this moment feels like a long-awaited awakening for the city. &ldquo;Many still see Georgia as &lsquo;post-Soviet&rsquo; first,&rdquo; explains Nato Japaridze, CEO of the Georgian hospitality and lifestyle company Adjara Group. &ldquo;Yes, history exists. But that&rsquo;s not the headline anymore.&rdquo; Japaridze is one of the key figures helping reshape Tbilisi through her work with the group, founded by entrepreneur Temur Ugulava and known for creating design-driven spaces where culture, community, and daily life intersect.
&ldquo;Georgia is progressive and deeply creative,&rdquo; muses Japaridze. &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t defined by its past. It&rsquo;s defined by a very independent, bold spirit.&rdquo; Evidence of this spirit can be seen in Adjara Group&rsquo;s projects, which began in the mid-2000s, when Georgia&rsquo;s hospitality industry was still nascent and the country was only beginning to attract international visitors. Since then, the group has reimagined sites across the country&mdash;from the mountain retreat Rooms Hotel Kazbegi to urban hubs in Tbilisi like Fabrika and Stamba Hotel (and the adjacent Rooms Hotel Tbilisi)&mdash;as cultural ecosystems that incorporate hotels, restaurants, creative studios, and public spaces.
&ldquo;In many ways, we grew together with the city,&rdquo; Japaridze explains. &ldquo;When Adjara Group started developing projects in Tbilisi, the city itself was still redefining its identity after the turbulent 1990s. There was enormous creative potential here, but there were very few platforms that could bring people together.&rdquo;
With Fabrika, the group created a grassroots hub that helped activate an entire neighborhood. Set in a former Soviet sewing factory, the project brought together a hostel, creative studios, caf&eacute;s, shops, and a spacious courtyard that quickly became a gathering place for young people, creatives, and travelers. Today, the surrounding streets are among the city&rsquo;s liveliest, filled with restaurants, shopping, and nightlife.
But the group&rsquo;s beating heart, and its internationally recognized project, is Stamba Hotel, which has come to define Tbilisi&rsquo;s new culture and hospitality scene. Housed in a former Soviet publishing house in the Vera district, and sharing walls with its more understated sibling Rooms Hotel Tbilisi, Stamba blends hospitality with cultural venues, restaurants, workspaces, and public spaces, creating a layered ecosystem that mirrors the city&rsquo;s creative energy.

Expanding beyond hospitality, Adjara Group developed D Block, a collaborative workspace that grew naturally out of the ecosystems the group had already created. &ldquo;It became obvious that the city needed a dedicated environment for collaboration, a space designed specifically for people who build ideas together,&rdquo; Japaridze says. The project emerged as Tbilisi was undergoing a generational shift post-COVID, when young professionals adopted more flexible, hybrid ways of working, with a growing startup scene and expanding creative industries.
While the group has several hospitality projects underway across Georgia, and continues its work in Udabno&mdash;a regenerative farm in the Kakheti region where thousands of acres of once-barren land have been turned into orchards, vineyards, and livestock farms&mdash;its focus in Tbilisi is on developing Radio City, a former radio factory that will be transformed into a new urban district that connects workspaces, culture, hospitality, and social life.
&ldquo;Temur Ugulava and his team created spaces and opportunities that didn&rsquo;t exist before. He gave the city a new sense of possibility,&rdquo; says Keti Toloraia, co-founder of Rooms Studio, crediting Adjara Group with helping spark Tbilisi&rsquo;s cultural revival. In many ways, she suggests they met the moment of a bold new generation that was beginning to drive the city forward. &ldquo;The change comes from a new generation that is very brave. People are using fashion, design, and music to say who they are. It&rsquo;s this collective energy and the desire to be part of the modern world,&rdquo; she explains.

For Tbilisi-born Toloraia and her design partner Nata Janberidze, the city itself has shaped their entire creative journey since graduating from the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts in 2003, then founding Rooms Studio in 2007. &ldquo;Experiencing Tbilisi&rsquo;s transformation from the Soviet era to today gave us a unique perspective,&rdquo; she reflects. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a city of contrasts. We have so much history, from ancient architecture to Soviet structures, all living together. It&rsquo;s a beautiful mess.&rdquo;
Janberidze and Toloraia are among the leaders of this new generation, having launched Tbilisi&rsquo;s first female-run design studio, creating hand-crafted furniture, lighting, and design objects that reclaim and reinterpret different historical design elements and traditions through a contemporary lens. &ldquo;We are constantly influenced by the contrast between the heavy, monolithic legacy of the Soviet era and the warmth and craftsmanship of traditional Georgian culture,&rdquo; says Toloraia.
This is reflected in their airy, sunlit studio, set in a 19th-century building just around the corner from Stamba Hotel. Large benches made from oak sourced in the Georgian countryside are scattered throughout the showroom, their surfaces etched with graffiti-style carvings and displayed alongside other architectural fragments the duo has reinterpreted. At the entrance, additional pieces from Rooms Studio&rsquo;s Historic Bench series are clustered together&mdash;an assortment of graffiti-covered stone benches created in collaboration with Georgian artist Max Machaidze. The works draw inspiration from the brutalist benches that once dotted Georgian towns, often at bus stops, remnants of a Soviet transport network that once connected the entire country. &ldquo;During the Blind Alley exhibition held in Tbilisi at the Rooms Studio space in 2019, visitors were allowed to carve and scratch the benches as a form of performance. This gesture echoed a familiar practice from the Soviet era, when people would vandalize public objects,&rdquo; shares Janberidze. These modest, often overlooked structures became unlikely canvases for creativity, expression, and quiet resistance&mdash;an instinctive visual language that Janberidze and Toloraia sought to preserve and reinterpret.
Over the years, the duo has brought Georgian craftsmanship to a global audience, presenting their work at Milan&rsquo;s Salone del Mobile, Design Miami, and leading international art and design fairs&mdash;firmly situating their practice on the world stage while remaining deeply rooted in their cultural heritage.

The same spirit that fuels Tbilisi&rsquo;s hotel and design scene is alive in its kitchens, where chefs are reshaping tradition&mdash;seen most clearly through the eyes of Paul Rimple. Rimple, who grew up in the California Bay Area, first discovered Tbilisi after a chance encounter with Georgian musicians in Krak&oacute;w, Poland, in the &rsquo;90s led him to visit the city in 2001. He moved to Tbilisi the following year, initially working as a freelance journalist before pivoting in 2015 to focusing on coverage of Georgia&rsquo;s food and wine scene. In 2021, he launched Meet Me Here Tbilisi, offering private tours that take visitors into hidden kitchens, wine cellars, and homes across the city, transforming his passion for Tbilisi, its culture, and its flavors into deeply immersive local experiences.
&ldquo;Tbilisi&rsquo;s food scene is potent, energetic, imaginative, and reflective of the times, but to appreciate what&rsquo;s happening today, you have to know a bit about its past,&rdquo; Rimple says. While Georgia has long been celebrated for its cuisine, its culinary traditions were profoundly reshaped during the Soviet era, when centralized policies redefined which foods were preserved, standardized, and widely produced. Innovation was constrained during this period, when a standardized &ldquo;national cuisine&rdquo; was imposed behind the Iron Curtain and closely tied to cultural identity. Yet at its core, Georgian food has always been inventive&mdash;shaped by centuries of trade, migration, and local improvisation, from dishes built on foraged greens to unexpected introductions like snail-filled khinkali (dumplings) in the 18th century.
In 2004, after the Rose Revolution brought Mikheil Saakashvili into power, Georgia began actively pursuing closer ties with Europe and the West. For Rimple, that moment marked a turning point for the country&rsquo;s food scene, as a new generation of chefs, like Tekuna Gachechiladze, returned to Tbilisi from cities like New York. Their homecoming helped remind people that Georgia has always been a melting pot of cultures, its cuisine shaped by its position at the crossroads of Europe and Asia&mdash;what Paul calls a &ldquo;clich&eacute; for a reason.

With deep roots as a medieval trading hub, Georgian food has long been the product of these cultures converging over centuries: pomegranates, believed to have arrived from Persia, are central to many dishes; walnut-based sauces echo broader regional traditions; and staples like dolmas and kebabs, shared across the Mediterranean and Middle East, are now fixtures on Georgian tables.
As Rimple puts it: &ldquo;The Soviets froze &lsquo;tradition,&rsquo; and now, 30 years after the collapse, we&rsquo;re witnessing the big thaw. The culinary canvas is clean&mdash;we can do whatever we want.&rdquo; He sees the country returning to tradition, with chefs digging up pre-Soviet recipes. &ldquo;One restaurant, Barbarastan, has a menu based on a once-lost 19th-century Georgian cookbook by [the princess, feminist, and author] Barbare Jorjadze.&rdquo;
Rimple&rsquo;s most popular tour is a visit to the Dezerter&rsquo;s Bazaar, Tbilisi&rsquo;s oldest produce market. &ldquo;It is an excellent introduction to the local food scene as we see the seasonal ingredients that make up this luscious cuisine, like tkemali (sour plum sauce) and fresh herbs like tarragon, but more importantly, the people behind it.&rdquo; Rimple finishes his tours with lunch and a tasting of natural wines, and he also organizes trips to the homes of his favorite winemakers outside of town&mdash;a fitting reminder that, among all of its many identities, Georgia&rsquo;s most enduring legacy may be its role as the birthplace of wine.

<h2 style="text-align: center;">What to Eat in Tbilisi</h2>

&ldquo;For Acharuli Khachapuri (Georgian cheese bread), there is only one place: Retro. Sulico Wine Bar has it all: a great wine list, original Georgian dishes you will not find anywhere else, great laid-back service, and seating on the very chill patio. Ninia&rsquo;s Garden is Chef Meriko Gubeladze&rsquo;s latest, where she introduces her own brand of modern Georgian cuisine. Restaurant Littera is Chef Tekuna Gachechiladze&rsquo;s flagship restaurant, a classic place in a Narnia-like garden where you see what contemporary Georgian cuisine is all about. Everyone has their favorite khinkali (dumpling) place. One of mine is Pictograma because I love the texture of handmade dough and real mountain khinkali. These hail from the khinkali homeland of Khevsureti and are stuffed with beef. The cheese and potato ones are lovely as well. Azarphesha is part ethnographic museum and part living room of owner Luarsab Togonidze, who often drops in to entertain guests. Gvantsa Koroshinadze&rsquo;s cooking perfectly fits in with the homey atmosphere. Located in a 19th-century cellar near Freedom Square, Vino Underground is the city&rsquo;s first natural wine bar and continues to pour wines from the country&rsquo;s most celebrated winemakers.&rdquo; - Paul Rimple, founder of Meet Me Here Tbilisi.

<h2 style="text-align: center;">Where to Go in Tbilisi</h2>

&ldquo;My favorite places are the streets of Tbilisi themselves, with their buildings, entrances, and apartments, which are a never-ending discovery. The rooms there are very inspiring and full of local spirit. There are amazing public spaces and some institutional buildings where you can feel and even smell the old times&mdash;these places, like the Tbilisi Chess Palace, are really precious. The same feeling comes from the Sukhishvili rehearsal dance hall, where I used to take Georgian dance lessons when I was a teenager. It is possible to visit and watch their amazing rehearsals. The Open Air Museum of Ethnography is also a beautiful place to experience the different regions of Georgia. I also like visiting galleries such as LC Queisser, Bukia Vakhania, and E.A. Shared Space.&rdquo; - Nata Janberidze, co-founder of Rooms Studio.

<h2 style="text-align: center;">What to See in Tbilisi</h2>

&ldquo;Tbilisi&rsquo;s creative scene is very fluid. Things appear, transform, disappear, and re-emerge somewhere else. That constant movement is part of its charm. Galleries like LC Queisser, Window Project, and Bukia Vakhania consistently introduce strong contemporary voices, while Tbilisi Photography &amp; Multimedia Museum has become an important platform for photography and visual culture in the city. And of course, Tbilisi&rsquo;s cultural life cannot be separated from its music and club scene. Places like Bassiani, Mutant Radio, and Left Bank have become cultural institutions of their own that define the city&rsquo;s creative rhythm beyond nightlife.&rdquo; - Nato Japaridze, CEO of Adjara Group.

Tbilisi is the It Destination of the Moment—Here’s Why

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