Vegetarian and vegan retreat food in Georgia (the country): Adjarian dishes for groups, 2026

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Published 28 October 2026·16 min read·Prices and facts checked: October 2026

A retreat group in Georgia eats well on a vegetarian or vegan menu: pkhali, lobio, ajapsandali and mchadi are fasting food, while Adjarian mountain dishes are vegetarian, not vegan. Group full board at our vegetarian kitchen costs from 100 GEL per person per day in 2026.

A retreat group in Georgia (the country) eats well on a vegetarian or vegan menu, because Georgian cooking already has hundreds of meat-free dishes built around walnuts, beans, aubergine, greens and corn. The traps are hidden butter, egg in the dough, walnuts in almost everything, and fasting menus that can still include fish. This guide covers which venues cook for a plant-based group, which Adjarian and Georgian dishes are naturally vegan, what a week of meals looks like, how to handle allergies and the Orthodox fasts, and what full board costs per day in 2026.

We wrote it from our own kitchen. Yurtalicious, the yurt restaurant at Glamping Tago in the mountains of Adjara, is fully vegetarian and cooks for retreat groups of up to 30 people every season from April to the end of October.

The short answer: a venue whose own kitchen is vegetarian is the easiest, because nobody has to ask twice. Most retreat venues in Georgia are hotels with a standard Georgian menu, where a vegan participant eats from the side dishes unless the organizer arranges a separate menu ahead.

Glamping Tago (our venue), Adjara

Where: on the ridge above Village Tago, Khulo municipality, at about 1,200 m. Drive: 86.7 km from Batumi airport, about 2 hours. Group size: retreats of up to 30, with the whole camp for one group and everyone sleeping on site. Full board for groups: from 100 GEL per person per day (2026). Season: 1 April to the end of October.

The kitchen cooks no meat and no fish. It uses milk, eggs and honey, and every meal has vegan dishes on the buffet. Our online menu marks each dish VG (vegan), LF (lactose-free), GF (gluten-free) and NF (nut-free), so a participant can check the lunch dishes before arriving. Breakfast and dinner are buffets cooked fresh each morning by women from the village; lunch is a la carte.

Adjara: Eco House Merisi, Keda

Where: Silibauri, in a side valley of Keda municipality. Drive: 48.4 km from Batumi airport, a little over an hour on mountain roads. Size: weddings of 20 to 50, up to 60 at dinner, 54 sleeping on site in cottages and villas.

Its restaurant seats 60 in the upstairs hall and 40 on the veranda, and serves Georgian and Mountain Adjara dishes with a separate halal menu. A vegetarian group eats here from the regular menu, so send your list of diets ahead. Merisi is not on the road to Tago: as a stop between Batumi airport and our camp it adds 23.3 km and about 38 minutes.

Near Tbilisi: Kiketi Farm

Where: Kiketi, at 1,200 m in the hills above Tbilisi, 30 minutes from the city. Drive: 44.6 km from Tbilisi airport, about 1 hour. Size: the Native restaurant seats 60 indoors and 60 on the terrace, open 09:00 to 22:00.

Native cooks farm-to-table with produce from the farm, and the menu changes regularly, which suits a group that wants a lot of vegetables. It is a public restaurant as well as a hotel, so your group shares it with day visitors; Kiketi Farm itself has Oda houses, cottages and treehouses.

Kakheti: Lopota Lake Resort and Kvareli Lake Resort

Lopota's Dining Hall serves a buffet for breakfast (08:00 to 11:00), lunch (14:00 to 16:00) and dinner (19:00 to 21:00) with organic produce from the resort's garden, next to Georgian, Italian and Asian restaurants. A buffet makes a mixed group easy: vegans pick around the dairy dishes, the rest eat everything. With 231 rooms, it is a resort you share with other guests.

Kvareli Lake Resort has 100 rooms on a 44-hectare lake in the Alazani valley, conference halls for 300 and 80, and restaurants on site. Recent guests praise the breakfast buffet.

Kazbegi: Rooms Kazbegi

Rooms Kazbegi is the best-known retreat hotel in the Kazbegi mountains, 169.9 km and about 3 hours from Tbilisi airport over the Georgian Military Road. The Kazbegi Kitchen cooks classic Georgian dishes with seasonal produce, so a vegetarian group orders from the regular menu. Its Google reviews from the last 12 months average 3.5, and several October 2026 reviews describe slow restaurant service.

For a wider comparison of venues by region, see our retreat venues in Georgia guide.

Yes. Georgian Orthodox fasting food (samarkhvo, სამარხვო) has no meat, no dairy and no egg. Ask for samarkhvo in a traditional restaurant and you get the plant-based part of the menu.

Samarkhvo is a strong hint, not a guarantee. Three things to know:

• Fish. The church allows fish on certain fast days, so a fasting menu can include fish.
• Honey. Fasting rules allow honey, so gozinaki (walnuts set in honey) and korkoti are samarkhvo but not vegan.
• Butter and cheese. Some kitchens put dairy into dishes on their fasting menu, so a strict vegan still asks about butter and cheese.

The words that help: khortsis gareshe (without meat), qvelis gareshe (without cheese), karakis gareshe (without butter) and kvertskhis gareshe (without egg).

The core of the Georgian table is vegan when it is cooked the traditional way: pkhali, badrijani nigvzit (aubergine rolls with walnut paste), ajapsandali, Georgian tomato and cucumber salad, mchadi cornbread, shoti and tonis puri bread, ghomi with bazhe walnut sauce, tkemali, satsebeli and ajika, churchkhela, pelamushi and tklapi fruit leather.

Mountain Adjara's own dishes are vegetarian rather than vegan. Milk products are the base of the highland diet: borano, sinori, kaimaghi cream and the boat-shaped Adjarian khachapuri all come from the summer pastures, with butter in most dishes. Our own guide to Adjara mountain food covers them dish by dish.

At Glamping Tago a retreat group eats three meals a day in the yurt: a breakfast buffet from 9:00 to 11:00, lunch a la carte from 13:00 to 16:00 and a dinner buffet from 19:00 to 21:00. Coffee and tea are free all day. Everyone gets the same menu, and vegan, gluten-free and allergy needs are cooked on the side with notice.

Breakfast rotates between khachapuri or lobiani from the oven, porridges, a frittata, a salad bar, brownies and banana cake. Dinner is one of three buffet variations each night, with ajapsandali, vegetable chanakhi, lobio, ratatouille, soups and salads and a dessert. Lunch comes from the lunch menu: rice-stuffed peppers in tomato sauce, pkhal-lobio with mchadi and pickled vegetables, a pkhali board, grilled vegetables, Georgian salads, sinori and Adjarian khachapuri.

Here is a sample week for a seven-day retreat, built from our menu:

A week from dinner on day 1 to breakfast on day 7 is six days of full board. On a full-day lake hike our kitchen can keep lunch for the group's return, so say in your programme whether you want a picnic or a late meal.

Guests notice the food: after the view and the staff, it is what our Google reviews mention most. One review from May 2026 sums up what retreat groups often say: "Even though we're not vegetarians, we didn't even want meat."

Collect every diet and allergy at booking and send one list to the venue. At Glamping Tago allergies must be declared at booking, and vegan, gluten-free and allergy meals are cooked with advance notice. Everything comes out of one small kitchen, so it cannot promise a plate free of every trace: for a severe allergy, talk to us before you book. The final participant count is due in writing 14 days before arrival.

Nuts. Walnuts are the main allergy risk in Georgian cooking. They are in pkhali, badrijani nigvzit, satsivi, bazhe, the walnut dressing on salads, churchkhela, gozinaki and some kharcho and lobio. The words to know are nigozi (ნიგოზი) for walnut, tkhili (თხილი) for hazelnut and arakisi (არაქისი) for peanut. On our menu 11 of the 17 dishes are nut-free.

Gluten. Khachapuri, lobiani, kubdari, khinkali and both breads are wheat, and pelamushi and churchkhela can be thickened with wheat flour. Mchadi and ghomi (corn) are the naturally gluten-free staples. On a label, უგლუტენო or გლუტენის გარეშე means gluten-free. On our menu 9 of the 17 dishes are gluten-free. Dedicated gluten-free cafes are in Tbilisi and Kutaisi; in Adjara, plan the gluten-free meals with your venue.

Lactose and dairy. 8 of our 17 menu dishes are lactose-free and 8 are vegan. For a vegan participant, the buffet dishes to skip are the cheese breads, borano and anything with matsoni.

The Georgian church keeps the old (Julian) calendar, so check the dates against the Georgian calendar, not a Western one. Three of them land in the April to October retreat season:

Most Wednesdays and Fridays are fast days too, outside the fast-free weeks such as Bright Week after Easter (3 to 9 May 2027). The 2026 dates come from the Pravmir fasting calendar.

What changes for you: in a fasting period supermarkets stock fasting mayonnaise, cakes, chocolate and cookies on a separate shelf. On the strictest fast days even oil and wine are left out. The church usually gives travellers a lighter fast, along with the sick, expectant and nursing mothers and young children.

At Glamping Tago group full board costs from 100 GEL per person per day (about €35): a breakfast buffet, lunch and a dinner buffet, with coffee and tea all day. For 20 participants over six days that is from 12,000 GEL. Food and extras are paid at the end of the stay; the 30% prepayment that holds your dates covers the accommodation. The retreat organizer eats free for the whole stay; a co-teacher pays the normal rate.

For comparison, a single dish in an Adjarian restaurant costs about 18 to 30 GEL. At Adjarian Wine House in Acharistskali, on the road from Batumi towards Khulo, borano with potatoes is 17.60 GEL, baked lobio in a pot 19.80 GEL, pkhali-lobio 22 GEL and sinori 29.70 GEL. In Tbilisi a pot of lobio costs about 18 GEL at a central restaurant.

If you price the food into your retreat, the usual rule for yoga retreats is a food cost of 25 to 35% of the selling price, plus 10 to 20% for buffet waste if you cater yourself. Our retreat cost guide builds a full 7-day budget for 20 people.

At a vegetarian venue the answer is a planned meat evening, not a second menu. At Glamping Tago there are three ways:

• A BBQ live station cooked by us for the whole group: 45 GEL per person. It is cooked for everyone, not for part of the group.
• Meat khinkali on the supra: 15 GEL per person.
• Your own grill: on a whole-camp buyout the group can bring its own meat for a mangal (grill) setup, 20 GEL. The restaurant itself stays vegetarian, so grilling is only possible when the group has the whole camp.

A dinner at a family guesthouse in the village is the fourth option, and it doubles as an evening out.

Batumi has fewer vegan places than the older guides suggest. Go Vegan Cafe on Noe Jordania Street is closed, and Tå-me Vegan Kitchen on Parnavaz Mepe Street is temporarily closed. The reliable choice in the centre is Freeduchio, an all-day cafe with vegan food on the menu, open from 09:00 every day.

For anything else, ask for samarkhvo dishes in a Georgian restaurant: pkhali, lobio, ajapsandali, mchadi and salads are on almost every menu. The big supermarket chains (Carrefour, Spar, Nikora, Fresco) stock tofu, soy and oat milk and dairy-free yoghurt, at a smaller range and higher prices than in Europe.

From Batumi airport it is 86.7 km to the camp, about 2 hours. The road is asphalt as far as Khulo; the last 8.9 km up to Tago is a 4x4 road, 30 to 35 minutes by our 4x4 taxi. A minibus or Sprinter takes the easier way through the Skhalta valley: turn off the main road at Zamleti, 4.7 km before Khulo, and climb through Cheri and Dzmagula. Every route is on our how to get here page.

• Private 4x4 from Batumi: 2 h 30, 265 GEL per car for up to 4 people.
• Marshrutka: Batumi bus station to Khulo every 30 minutes, 08:00 to 20:00, about 2 h 30 and 10 GEL, then our 4x4 taxi up, 75 GEL per car.
• From Kutaisi airport: the bus (25 GEL) or the train (31 GEL) to Batumi, about 2 hours each and 4 times a day, then on as above. A private 4x4 from Kutaisi straight to Tago is 5 h 30 and 465 GEL per car.

Food on the way: the marshrutka stops halfway for food and a toilet, and a group transfer can stop at a waterfall for a picnic for 50 GEL extra. Khulo has shops and banks, so buy snacks and take cash there. At the camp we have Starlink Wi-Fi.

1. Six to twelve months ahead: choose the venue and dates. Groups and high-season retreats (June to September) usually book that far ahead.
2. At booking: collect every participant's diet and allergy on your registration form, and send the list with the booking.
3. 30 days before: send the programme, including hike days, workshops and any evening event, so the kitchen can plan picnics and late meals.
4. 14 days before: confirm the final participant count in writing, with the final diet list.
5. On arrival: introduce your participants with allergies to the kitchen team on the first evening.
6. During the week: tell the kitchen the day before about any change, such as a picnic lunch or a meat evening.

Glamping Tago for this

A vegetarian retreat week at Glamping Tago

Our kitchen has been vegetarian since we opened, so a vegan or vegetarian retreat is the group we cook for every week of the season. You get the whole camp for your group of up to 30, three meals a day in Yurtalicious, the yurt restaurant on site, and a menu that marks every dish vegan, gluten-free, lactose-free and nut-free.

Tell Anastasia your diets at booking and the kitchen plans the week with you: picnics on hike days, a khachapuri workshop, a samarkhvo table for fasting guests, or a BBQ evening if part of the group wants meat.

Group size

Retreats up to 30, the whole camp for one group, 33 beds

Full board

From 100 GEL per person per day for groups (2026), coffee and tea all day

Organizer

Eats free for the whole stay

Diets

Vegetarian kitchen; vegan, gluten-free, nut-free and allergies with notice

Meals

Breakfast buffet 9-11, lunch 13-16, dinner buffet 19-21

Drive from Batumi airport

86.7 km, about 2 hours

Season

1 April to the end of October

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