What to Eat in Mountainous Adjara, Georgia: Dishes and Where to Eat (2026)

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Published 2 October 2026·15 min read·Prices and facts checked: October 2026

Order borano, sinori and kaimaghi with mchadi in the Adjara mountains, and eat on the Batumi to Khulo road at Makhuntseti, Keda (Akavreta), Shuakhevi and Khulo. A cafe lunch costs 20 to 35 GEL in 2026.

Mountainous Adjara eats differently from Batumi. Up the Adjaristskali valley through Keda, Shuakhevi and Khulo, almost everything is cooked in butter and built on mountain dairy: braided cheese, nadughi curd and kaimaghi cream. Here are the dishes to order, the roadside restaurants worth stopping at between Batumi and Khulo, what a meal costs in 2026, and where to buy honey, cheese and wine to take home.

Order borano, sinori and kaimaghi with mchadi cornbread: these three are the food of the Adjara highlands, and the official Visit Ajara Khulo guide lists them as the must-try dishes, together with Adjarian cheese and local potatoes. Add an Adjarian khachapuri and a plate of river trout and you have eaten the region.

The difference from the coast is butter. The Georgian National Tourism Administration puts it at 95% of the dishes of mountainous Adjara, and the dairy does the rest. Ethnographers have recorded up to 150 different dishes in Adjara, and the highland and coastal kitchens differ, sometimes from one gorge to the next.

Borano: the dish to come for

Borano is aged Adjarian braided cheese, soaked in hot water to soften it, then fried in iagi, the browned salted butter of the mountains. The tourism administration's recipe uses 100 g of cheese and 50 g of butter per portion, served with mchadi, and borano carries the status of an intangible cultural heritage monument of Georgia.

Some kitchens serve borano almost like an omelette. That is the modern version: some cooks add corn flour, others flour and eggs, while the traditional way is only cheese and browned butter. Ask for it the old way in the mountains. In restaurants it costs 12 to 25 GEL a portion.

Sinori, kaimaghi and the rest of the mountain table

Sinori takes the place of honour at weddings in Upper Adjara: unleavened sheets of thin dough (iukha) baked, rolled, cut, packed upright in a pan and baked again with nadughi curd, boiled butter and garlic. If borano sounds too heavy, sinori is the dish to order instead.

Kaimaghi is the high-mountain cream skimmed off chilled milk, eaten with cheese and warm mchadi. The same official list names dishes found nowhere else in Georgia: chirbuli, kaisapa, tsurvili, sinori, doshorva, kalajo, festilshorva, thermon, kapshon and mchkidi. Keda adds its own: river trout and Kokotauri mineral water.

Drive or ride the Batumi to Akhaltsikhe road (Sh1) up the Adjaristskali valley: it is 85 km of asphalt from the old Batumi bus station to Khulo, about 2 to 2.5 hours without stops. Every restaurant in the next section sits on this road or within 4 km of it, so you can plan lunch in Makhuntseti or Keda and dinner in Khulo or Tago.

Two good tables are not on this road. Eco House Merisi is up the Merisi side valley from Keda and adds about 23 km and 40 minutes to the trip. The Khikhani guesthouse is 38 km beyond Khulo. Both are separate trips, covered below.

Where to sleep so that you eat well

Sleep in the mountains, not in Batumi: the best Adjarian food is cooked at home, and the guesthouses and camps above Keda cook three meals a day. Visit Ajara puts a village night with three meals at about 50 GEL.

Glamping Tago, our camp on the hill above Village Tago, is 8.5 km above Khulo and 92.5 km from Batumi. You sleep in a Lotus Belle tent and eat in Yurtalicious, our vegetarian yurt restaurant, with breakfast and dinner buffets cooked each morning by women from the village. It is open from 1 April to the end of October; see today's prices.

Rima's Village Home in Vashlovani is 1.6 km off the main road before Khulo, a 2024 Good Host guesthouse with five rooms, three meals a day and Adjarian cooking masterclasses.

Hotel Khulo Inn sits right on the main road at the edge of Khulo, at 140 GEL a night on its Visit Ajara listing. Guests come back for the breakfasts with homemade cheese and khachapuri.

Stop at Makhuntseti for wine and trout, at Keda for borano and sinori, and at Shuakhevi for the cheapest khinkali on the road. All the places below are on the main road or a short spur off it, all rate 4.3 or higher on Google, and all have a phone number you can call ahead.

Makhuntseti: the waterfall lunch stop

The Makhuntseti waterfall is the first big stop in Keda municipality, and the busiest: more than 11,000 people have reviewed it on Google. A short walk from the road takes you to the falls, and four restaurants sit within a few hundred metres.

Dologani Valley is on the main road before Makhuntseti, with no detour. It is open until midnight, takes cash only and has live music; order the grilled trout or the khachapuri.

Avaliani Wine House is a winery restaurant on the road in Makhuntseti, open daily 10:00 to 23:00, with tastings, live music and culinary masterclasses.

Cafe Bar Shergebuli is a family cafe on the road in Kveda Makhuntseti with its own garden. It pours homemade Rkatsiteli wine at 20 GEL a litre and makes khinkali with meat, potato or mushroom.

Restaurant Chanchkerze stands by the waterfall itself, a 3.9 km spur off the main road. It takes cards, closes at 23:00 and runs culinary masterclasses.

The Adjarian Wine House at Acharistskali, at the very start of the road, is the best-known wine stop and the busiest. It runs tastings and khinkali and cheese masterclasses, open 11:00 to 22:00. Its Google rating of 4.1 from more than 1,300 reviews is lower than the family places further up, so taste there and eat in Makhuntseti.

Keda: borano, sinori and Adjarian wine

Keda is the centre of Adjarian winemaking, 41 km from Batumi at 256 m, and the town to order borano and sinori. Visit Ajara names Tsolikouri (white) and Chkhaveri (a pinkish, late-harvest grape) as its wines, made in Pirveli Maisi, Vaio, Dandalo, Gegelidzeebi and Koromkheti. The grape harvest is in October.

Restaurant Akavreta, at 7a Rustaveli Street in Keda, is 1.3 km off the main road and open until 23:00. The owner has borano and sinori made with butter and cheese from the Adjara mountains and pours his own wine; it takes cards.

Vaio Resort in the village of Vaio is a 1.6 km detour from the main road. Its restaurant seats about 120 under seven wooden cottages, and the wine cellar is carved into the mountain: house wine, chacha, honey and Adjarian cooking masterclasses.

Shuakhevi: khinkali and trout by the river

Shuakhevi is the cheap stop. Khinklis Sakhli is a plain roadside dining room on the main road, where khinkali cost 1.2 GEL each and the portions are big.

Adjara Inn, at 51 Rustaveli Street, has a terrace over the river and serves mostly Adjarian dishes and trout from 10:00 until midnight, and takes cards. Order the trout here: the reviews praise it and the view, and are split on the khachapuri.

Eat at Cafe Levon's, a small family cafe next to the Khulo market at 24 Memed Abashidze Street. It has no phone or website, so just walk in from 10:00. Order the goulash and the khinkali: a goulash lunch for four costs about 32 GEL.

Khulo has supermarkets, a market and ATMs. If you plan to sleep in Tago, buy what you need here: there are no shops in Tago. Without a 4x4, park anywhere in Khulo centre and take the 4x4 taxi up.

Yurtalicious, the yurt restaurant at Glamping Tago, is a fully vegetarian kitchen, and it also feeds day visitors. Lunch runs 13:00 to 16:00 from the lunch menu: Georgian salads, sinori, Adjarian khachapuri, and borano on the days the kitchen makes it.

Breakfast is a buffet from 09:00 to 11:00 at 32 GEL, and dinner a buffet from 19:00 to 21:00 at 37 GEL with dessert included: adjapsandali, chanakhi, lobio, soups and salads, one of three menus each night. The kitchen cooks no meat or fish; vegan, gluten-free and allergy meals are made on advance notice. The yurt seats 24 at the long table, so message us on WhatsApp to book a table before you come up.

Eat at the Goderdzi resort, 25 km past Khulo at the gondola base (1,700 m): cafes and hotel restaurants there are open to everyone, and a bowl of kharcho costs about 12 GEL. Glamping Tago is not on this road: going via Tago adds about 17 km.

The surest table is the a la carte restaurant of Hotel Ambassadori Goderdzi, open to visitors from 12:00 to midnight.

Beshumi, the summer resort at 1,850 to 2,000 m, is 36 km from Khulo over the Goderdzi road. Go there for the Shuamtoba festival in August rather than for a meal, and eat in Goderdzi or Khulo.

Yes, if you have a free afternoon: the panorama restaurant at Eco House Merisi has a hall for 60 and a veranda for 40 over the Merisi valley. It is a side trip, not a stop on the way: it adds about 23 km and 40 minutes to the Batumi to Khulo drive.

The restaurant is open 09:00 to 20:00 and takes cards, so come for lunch rather than a late dinner. The menu mixes the chef's own dishes, classic Georgian food and mountain Adjarian specialties, and there is a halal menu.

The Khikhani guesthouse in Khikhadziri, at 1,300 m, 38 km and about an hour from Khulo, is the other table worth a separate trip. The hosts cook three meals a day and run Adjarian cooking masterclasses, and it pairs with a climb to Khikhani Fortress (our guide).

A cafe lunch costs 20 to 35 GEL a person in Georgia in 2026, and the family cafes of the Adjara mountains come in under that: khinkali cost 1.2 GEL each in Shuakhevi, and four people eat in Khulo for about 32 GEL. Restaurant bills across Georgia rose 7.6% in the year to May 2026.

Vegetarians eat very well, because the mountain kitchen runs on cheese, butter, beans, walnuts and cornbread: borano, sinori, kaimaghi, khachapuri, malakhto and lobio are all meat-free. Vegans need one word: samarkhvo, the Orthodox fasting food with no meat, dairy or egg.

With samarkhvo food, ask about the details: egg in the dough, butter on the mushrooms, ham in the lobio. Cafe Bar Shergebuli makes khinkali with potato or mushroom. Yurtalicious in Tago cooks no meat or fish at all and makes vegan and gluten-free meals when you tell the kitchen in advance.

Buy wine at the cellars in Makhuntseti and Keda, honey from the jara keepers of the Khulo villages, and cheese at the Khulo market. Khulo, Keda and Goderdzi also have supermarkets for the plainer things.

Jara honey comes from wild bees kept in hollowed wooden logs hung high in trees, out of reach of bears. One hive gives up to 19 kg in a season, and only about ten dozen jara beekeepers are left in western Georgia. 24 jara keepers hold Bio certification, including the apiary at the Goderdzi Alpine Garden.

From Tago we run a half-day jara honey tasting at the home of Mindia, a sixth-generation jara keeper, with a Georgian feast at his table, and a full day in Ghorjomi with a working watermill, the village bakery and lunch in a family home.

For cheese, look for braided Adjarian cheese and chechili, the mountain cheeses that the tourism administration says no trip to Khulo is complete without. A cheese factory in Dioknisi, working since 2015, buys milk from 22 villages and more than 300 farmers and makes Imeruli, sulguni, cottage cheese and butter. For wine, Avaliani Wine House and Vaio Resort sell their own, and Shergebuli pours its homemade wine by the litre.

Come between June and October, when the summer pastures are full and every restaurant on the road is open; October adds the grape harvest in Keda. Glamping Tago and Yurtalicious are open from 1 April to the end of October and closed in winter.

• Late July and early August: Shuamtoba. The festival of the summer pastures is held in Beshumi on the first weekend of August (2 August in 2026), free to watch. A separate Shuamtoba took place at Mount Chudurauli in the Ghorjomi gorge on 25 July 2026.
• October: the harvest in Keda. The Visit Ajara Keda page puts the grape harvest in October.
• November: Autumn in Keda. The Keda wine festival is usually held in November, with tastings, local food and culinary masterclasses in the central park (9 November in 2024).

Carry cash. Dologani Valley, the village guesthouses and the small cafes take cash only; Chanchkerze, Akavreta, Avaliani, Adjara Inn and Eco House Merisi also take cards. The ATMs are in Khulo, Keda and Goderdzi.

• Lunch is the main meal. Plan it for Makhuntseti or Keda on the way up. Kitchens close between 20:00 (Merisi) and midnight (Dologani Valley, Adjara Inn).
• Call ahead in the villages. Guesthouse meals are cooked for the guests they expect, so book dinner when you book the room.
• Download an offline map. Mobile signal is unreliable between Khulo and Goderdzi, so save the restaurants you want before you leave Batumi.
• Pay our transfers at reception. The 4x4 taxi from Khulo to Tago is paid in cash at Glamping Tago, not to the driver.
• Do not bring food to the glamping. Glamping Tago asks guests not to bring their own food or drinks: the restaurant buys from local farms and employs people from the village.
• Share the heavy dishes. One borano and one sinori feed two people as a starter.

Take the Batumi to Khulo marshrutka from the old Batumi bus station at 1 Mayakovsky Street: it leaves every 30 minutes from 08:00 to 20:00, takes about 2.5 hours and costs about 10 GEL, and it stops halfway for food and a toilet. Driving, it is 85 km of asphalt to Khulo and a normal car is fine as far as Khulo.

The marshrutka drops you on the main road, so you can get off at Keda or Shuakhevi for lunch and catch a later one up. All prices and times are on our how to get here page; for the drive beyond Khulo, read our mountainous Adjara guide and the Green Lake guide.

Glamping Tago for this

Mountain food at Glamping Tago

We are on the hill above Village Tago, 8.5 km above Khulo. Our restaurant Yurtalicious is a yurt with the valley outside the window, and it is fully vegetarian: breakfast and dinner buffets cooked each morning by women from the village, and an a la carte lunch with sinori, Adjarian khachapuri and Georgian salads.

Stay the night and eat with the view; come up for lunch and we keep you a table. From Tago we also take you to the table of a sixth-generation jara honey keeper and to a family lunch in the Ghorjomi valley (tours).

Breakfast buffet

09:00-11:00, 32 GEL

Lunch

13:00-16:00, a la carte

Dinner buffet

19:00-21:00, 37 GEL, dessert included

Kitchen

Fully vegetarian; vegan and gluten-free on advance notice

Seats

24 at the long table, up to 32

Season

1 April to the end of October

Getting here

92.5 km from Batumi; 4x4 taxi from Khulo 75 GEL per car

See today's pricesContact us