Off the eaten track: Sighnagi, Georgia

Sighnagi was a gem for us – a picture perfect town, set on a hill overlooking majestic plains, with the greater caucasus mountains in the distance.

The prettiest town in kagheti province, this little fairy tale place does see its fair share of tourism, but still manages to retain it’s charm.

Being part of the wine growing region in Georgia does, of course, mean that there are wine cellars and wine bars everywhere – we found these to be a mixed bag, with some real gems, but most of them very overpriced and smacking of tourist traps.

Being a popular spot has its benefits of course, and one of them was that there are plenty of restaurants to choose from.

From all the restaurants in town however, there is one that stands out as being on par with Café Nikolozi in Tbilisi – one of the best restaurants of our entire trip. The name is restaurant SHIO, and its here: 41.618433, 45.922732. This little spot is not on TripAdvisor yet, so was a bit difficult for us to find, but wow – what a treat.

We went there for dinner twice – in total we had our usual salad (twice), a beetroot in plum sauce, fried quail, the most delicious carp we’ve ever eaten, aubergine and walnut rolls topped with barberries, spinach phkali (which were the best we’ve had in Georgia), aubergine and red peppers baked in a clay pot, salmon in walnut sauce and a massive chicken cooked in cream and garlic.

The homemade wine is delicious and cheap, and you can get a litre of it for the price of a glass of wine in Tbilisi!

Everything we ate there was excellent. A family run joint, these guys managed to turn out consistently great food, with an extensive and occasionally surprising menu (cow brains even made it on there).

The raw ingredients they used were top quality, the portions were generous, and the prices were reasonable – there is really no reason to eat anywhere else if you find yourself in Sighnagi!

Let us know if you make it out there, and what your experience was!