What’s New in Georgia in 2023: Bunker Tours, UNESCO Biospheres, a ‘Cheese Road’ & More!

For the second year running, ‘What’s New in Georgia’ brings together some of my favourite openings, launches and developments in Georgia. Think new restaurants and cafes, innovative tourism initiatives and infrastructure developments that are making remote corners of the country more accessible.

2022 was a big year, so there’s a lot to cover!

If you’re a frequent traveller to Georgia, you live here, or you’re planning to visit for the first time in 2023, these are the things you might want to look out for.

• Take a trip back through the archives with last year’s post, New in Georgia 2022
• Also read my personal annual review for 2022

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What’s new in Tbilisi?

Tbilisi has changed a lot over the past 12 months. I was trying to make a mental checklist of everything new that has popped up – but it’s almost an impossible task.

Here are just a couple of things that stand out:

I’m really excited to see more and more new tourist routes opening up around Georgia that make creative use of the country’s ‘untapped assets’. The advent of the Tbilisi Bunker Tour, the first legal guided exploration of the Soviet-era fallout shelters and tunnel networks beneath Tbilisi’s streets, is a great example. Organised by Tornike Kapanadze (Wise Guy), it’s a great opportunity to see the capital from a different angle.

Visitors to Tbilisi in 2023 will be greeted with a restored Vake Park and a renovated Pushkin Square. The Museum of Books finally reopened in late 2022, adding another chapter to my growing list of Tbilisi’s best museums.

Tbilisi has a slew of new hotels this year, including the Blue Fox Hotel and Bazzar Boutique, both of which I was lucky enough to visit when they launched. Later this year, Paragraph Hotel Freedom Square – that huge wave-shaped glass building on Freedom Square that has been under construction for years – will finally be completed, and a new Hyatt Regency will open inside the former Ministry of Justice building on Rustaveli Avenue.

Those looking for a unique accommodation experience (and Tbilisi is the perfect place for it) will be glad to hear that Heritage Homes launched in Georgia late last year. This platform offers a curated collection of historic properties for short-term stays, giving visitors access to some of Georgia’s most beautiful heritage buildings. I look forward to sharing more about it on the blog soon.

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New restaurants & cafes in Tbilisi

Tbilisi exploded with new openings in 2022. In the coming weeks, I will be updating my Tbilisi restaurant guide for 2023 to include some terrific contemporary Georgian eateries that are new on the scene.

Here are a couple of my favourites:

Joining the ranks of reclaimed spaces in Tbilisi, Satburi is a new collective of restaurants, bars and boutiques that opened on the edge of Mushtahid Garden last autumn, breathing new life into the abandoned greenhouses and orangeries there. Turns out these beautiful A-frame glass structures make for great dining rooms. Salt Restaurant and Sip Wine Bar are among the new residents.

Vintner-painter-restaurateur John Wurdeman has opened a new venue in the courtyard of the Ilia Chavchavadze Literary Memorial Museum (which itself made the news recently when it was nominated for the 2023 European Museum of the Year Award). Elegia pairs seasonal, plant-focused cuisine with natural wines. Meanwhile, John’s established restaurant, Poliphonia, has relocated to a new address in Mtatsminda.

Also on the hill, Tbilisi scored its first ‘artisanal khachapuri bakery’ in Gunda Khachapuri. Proving that cheesy bread is indeed its own food group, Gunda dishes up some of the more obscure regional versions of the national dish – for example, Meskhetian Khachapuri made with endemic red doli wheat flour and pulled tenili cheese.

Amo Rame Bani on Aghmashenebeli Avenue is the third feather in this popular restaurant empire’s cap. Wine Factory in Vera welcomed several new restaurants including Holy, while a few more vacant spaces in the up-and-coming Plekhanovi neighbourhood were converted into venues – my top picks are Saghighino for food (try the Tvishi wine custard with seasonal berries), and for cocktails, Unfound Door Gastro Bar.

Chicos has joined the ranks of Tbilisi’s trendiest breakfast spots, and Pictograma is bringing new flavours to the city with their Khevsur mountain cuisine.

Kaklebi by chef Meriko Gubeladze of Shavi Lomi and Ninia’s Garden fame has opened on the Tskneti Highway – the tender mtsvadi BBQ and fresh salads are absolutely worth travelling for.

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What’s new in Georgia?

2022 was my first full calendar year living in Kutaisi – and it too has changed quite a bit. More and more restaurants and cafes are springing up, including Story and Piatto, while the nightlife scene is gaining momentum thanks to new bars such as Ziari.

The city scored some excellent new street murals when the Niko Project visited in December, and to mark the opening of a special Petre Otskheli exhibition, a neon Flying Painter was installed on Rustaveli Street.

An upgraded Kutaisi International Airport opened in 2022 along with the new Kopitnari Railway Station. It’s now easier than ever to reach Kutaisi from Batumi or Tbilisi.

In 2023, budget carrier Ryanair is set to make its long-awaited, post-pandemic return to the Georgian market and will once again use Kutaisi as its base. Wizz Air is continuing to add more Kutaisi routes: There are now 27 in total, including new services from Brussels, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Madrid and Poznan launching in summer.

North of Kutaisi, Porto Gumati is offering lakeside bungalows in the picturesque Imeretian countryside, and to the south, Chateau Vartsikhe is the latest boutique winery-accommodation to open in Baghdati district.

The Vani Archeological Museum, a 45-minute drive from Kutaisi, also got a nod in the European Museum Forum’s 2023 European Museum of the Year nominations. If you haven’t been yet, it’s very much worth it.

As progress continues on the new east-west highway, towns and cities that have traditionally relied on passers-through are having to plan for a reality where most road trippers bypass them completely.

One exciting new initiative – probably the project I am most excited to see evolve in 2023 – is the Zestafoni New Industrial Route and Path of Mosaics. I was lucky enough to participate in the launch in December 2022 and wrote about my experience touring the 1933 Zestafoni Ferroalloy Plant and exploring Zestafoni’s Soviet-era mosaics and architecture. Stay tuned for more information about the tours that are launching in 2023.

In a similar vein, my friend Zhana Odiashvili created a new offering, Soviet Tours of Gori, to show tourists another side of her city. Earlier this month, the 1908-built Old Bridge in Gori – which was Georgia’s first iron-concrete bridge at the time of its completion – reopened. Restoration works are underway in Gori’s city centre (and similar projects are happening in Zestafoni and Zugdidi). It’s great to see this investment into Georgia’s small cities.

It seems that rumours about the future of Tskaltubo – the spa town outside Kutaisi – are always brewing. In 2022, there was some firmer news with several reports of sanatoriums being auctioned off to private investors and IDP families being relocated to new apartments.

The ‘New Life of Tskaltubo’ initiative will see 14 buildings transformed at a cost of more than 50 million GEL. While the results remain to be seen, one thing is for sure: Tskaltubo is changing fast, and 2023 might be your last chance to see it in its current form.

Several new Protected Areas were established in Georgia in 2022, including the Tana and Tedzami Protected Landscape in Shida Kartli region, and UNESCO designated two Biosphere Reserves: the Dedoplistskaro Biosphere Reserve and the Three Alazani Rivers Biosphere Reserve, both in Kakheti.

Plans for a 51,000-hectare national park in Racha were revealed, and at the same time several new hiking trails were marked in the region – including a new 74-km section of the Transcaucasian Trail. It links Sachkhere in Imereti with Racha and follows a similar path to the new mountain highway.

Staying in Sachkhere, restoration works were completed at Modinakhe Castle last year. Khuluti Fortress in Kvemo Kartli region was among the other fortifications to receive some TLC.

Georgia has several new museums in 2023, including a refurbished Oni Local Lore Museum and the new Borjomi Cavalry Museum (unfortunately, the latter was still not open when I visited Borjomi back in November).

Several interesting new wineries and restaurants have launched in rural Georgia, including Silver Lakes Farm in Telavi. Created by celebrity chef Tekuna Gachechiladze, it represents a new trend towards weekend getaways and farm-to-table experiences near Tbilisi – something that will keep growing in my opinion as people tire of the crowds and congestion in the city.

Also in Kakheti, the historic Chateau Mukhrani was restored and reopened in October. You might notice that it has regained its old, original brick-coloured facade.

Other notable openings include: Tchrebalo Cellar, a beautiful wine space in Lechkhumi; Bahnhof Station, a German-style beer hall in Asureti inspired by the area’s Swabian heritage; and The Social Space in Natanebi, a cool outdoor bar on the Black Sea Coast.

The launch of a new Rooms Hotel in a historic building near the port surely foreshadows more and more new openings in Batumi. The hotel is set to open its guestbook in spring.

Adjara Group is also restoring the former Sanatorium Arazindo in Abastumani, slated to start welcoming guests in 2024. In anticipation, the road through Sairme will be upgraded this year so that visitors can more easily reach Abastumani from Kutaisi. When it opens, I think it will be my new favourite weekend spot – I love Abastumani!

Roadworks are going on in the east of Georgia too, most notably on the Abano Pass to Tusheti. I know some of you believe that a new road will compromise Tusheti’s ‘purity’, but having travelled that road for the first time last summer 2022, I can only imagine how much easier it will make life for those who live in Tusheti.

And now, a road of a different kind. In 2023, the US Department of Agriculture is leading a new project to link Georgia’s artisanal dairy producers and create a ‘Cheese Road’, a delicious new tourism route much like the Wine Route in Kakheti or the Tea Route in Guria. Sign me up for that!

Wine Days, a roving program of wine festivities that visited dozens of cities and towns around Georgia, and Taste Fest, a new celebration of cuisines from Racha and Svaneti regions, had their inaugural dates in 2022. It will be great to celebrate these foodie-themed festivals again in 2023.

And of course Tbilisoba came back with a bang in 2022, so there is sure to be a stellar program planned for 2023. Last year it fell on October 1-2, so expect it to be on October 7-8 this year.

Find details for these festivals and more in my Georgia calendar for 2023.

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The Tbilisi City Guide: Coming spring 2023!

Finally, 2023 is a special year for me as I finally launch the Tbilisi City Guide, my first full-length travel guidebook. The ebook will be out in spring.

If you haven’t already, you can sign up here for presale announcements and updates.

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What did I miss? What are you excited about for 2023? If you have any other updates or news from Georgia to share, please leave me a comment below.

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