5 Best Restaurants in Kazbegi: Where to Eat in Stepantsminda

The best restaurants in Kazbegi, tested over several nights in Stepantsminda: what I ordered, what I paid, booking tips, and the local dishes to try.

Stepantsminda, the small mountain town everyone calls Kazbegi, has a lot more places to eat than you'd guess from driving through it. I spent several nights there this August, hiking during the day and eating dinner somewhere different each evening, so this list of the best restaurants in Kazbegi is fully based on my recent experience. 

For each restaurant you'll find what I ordered, roughly what the bill came to for two people, and whether or how you need to book ahead. Before that, there's a quick section on the local mountain dishes. A few of them are specific to this corner of Georgia, and it'll help you to recognize the names once you open a menu.

• Cost: dinner for two came to between 100 and 160 GEL at the restaurants below, with two or three shared dishes and something to drink.
• Booking: in July and August, reserve a table for dinner. When we got to some places, there was a long line of people waiting without a booking, and others were completely full
• Payment: we paid cash everywhere. Some places take cards, but carry enough lari to cover the bill just in case.
• Opening hours: most kitchens in town close around 9:30pm, so a very late dinner after a long hike isn't really an option.

Traditional cooking here leans heavily on wheat and dairy, with plenty of meat and, in summer, fresh greens and herbs from the slopes around town. Most restaurants serve the same Georgian classics you'd find in Tbilisi, but a few local dishes show up on menus as well.

These are the four I'd look for:

• Mkhlovani. A round, closed pie, cut into wedges like a pizza, with cheese and greens inside. Which greens depends on the season and the cook: spinach, nettles, wild mountain herbs. We ordered one at Samani on our first night, and the filling was mostly dark leaves with the cheese mixed through it, baked into a thin golden crust. 
• Khachoerbo. The name joins two words. Khacho is a fresh, crumbly cottage-style cheese, erbo is clarified butter, close to ghee. The two get melted together and served hot in the pan, and you eat it by dipping bread or potatoes straight in. Cheese fondue is the closest comparison, only richer. 
• Khabizgina. A khachapuri with potato mixed into the cheese filling. It comes from neighboring Ossetia. Tiba, the restaurant at the end of this list, is known for a version made with mountain potatoes and a dough prepared with matsoni, a tangy Georgian yogurt.
• Mokhevuri Khinkali. Khinkali are Georgia's big pleated dumplings, filled with meat and a hot broth you're supposed to sip out through a small bite before eating the rest. Mokhevuri is the mountain version. The filling is plainer, usually just beef or lamb with no pork and no herbs or spices, and the dumplings tend to be bigger and flatter, with a thicker, chewier dough. 
• Beyond these, every restaurant in town has the Georgian standards: Adjaruli khachapuri, the boat-shaped cheese bread with a raw egg yolk and a slab of butter in the middle. Pkhali, small mounds of chopped vegetables blended with walnut paste and garlic. Kebabs, and slow-cooked stews like chashushuli. 

1. Maisi

Maisi is located up in Gergeti, close to where the trail to Gergeti Trinity Church starts, so we drove there from our hotel in Stepantsminda.

Inside it's very small and warm, lots of old wood, with an open kitchen running along one side. Our table was a tiny marble one pushed right up against the kitchen counter, close enough to watch the cooks fill cast-iron skillets from the pile stacked next to us. Every table was taken. We'd booked through Whatsapp, and without that I doubt we'd have gotten in.

The menu changes often, so don't count on finding exactly what we had. The idea stays the same: dishes from this mountain region, cooked and plated in a more modern way.

We shared the khachoerbo I described earlier, which was basically a delicious cheesy fondue, then a beef tartare and a plate of khinkali.
The beef tartare came in a white bowl, hand-cut beef mixed with herbs, half covered by a creamy white sauce dusted with a red spice, and a big, paper-thin crisp standing on top of it like a lid. The khinkali were half-moons, filled with potato and cheese, sitting in a buttery sauce with a citrus kick and a basil leaf on each one.

With two glasses of wine, the bill came to 158 GEL, the highest of our dinners. If you're doing the Gergeti Glacier hike, Maisi is nearby, which makes it an easy way to end that day too.

2. Samani

Samani is a small wooden cabin on the main road into Stepantsminda, set back behind a garden full of yellow flowers. One side of the building is a glass-walled dining room, and there's more seating out on the lawn in good weather. It only opened in 2024, so you won't find it in older guides.

We sat inside. I was glad I'd booked through their email address (available on their IG page), because when we got there a long line of people without a reservation was waiting outside, and it didn't look like it was moving fast.

We ordered three things to share. The barbecued chicken arrived in a cast-iron skillet, the pieces drizzled with a dark glaze, sitting on thin lavash bread with red onion. The grilled vegetables got the same dark glaze: roasted red peppers, zucchini and eggplant. And the mkhlovani, the greens and cheese pie I talked about above, big enough that we took our time finishing it. With beers and water, the total was slighly above 100 GEL, the cheapest of our four dinners.

The menu is classic Georgian food, done well, in a setting that makes a nice first evening in the mountains

3. Alpine Lounge

This is the restaurant of the Alpine Lounge Hotel, on a side street about ten minutes' walk from the center of Stepantsminda, and the whole dining room is built around a mountaineering theme. Old black-and-white photos of climbers and skiers cover the walls. A wooden board holds an ice axe, coiled climbing ropes and a pair of crampons.

The menu is a single page, a short list of Georgian classics plus a few European dishes, each with a line of explanation in English and small chili icons next to anything spicy. Useful if Georgian food is still new to you. The wine list has plenty of Georgian wines by the glass, including a couple made in qvevri, the large clay jars buried in the ground that Georgians have used to ferment wine for centuries.

We shared three dishes. The kebab, listed as the chef's special, was a long roll of grilled minced meat laid on flatbread and covered in red onion, coriander and pomegranate seeds, with a small jug of homemade tomato sauce on the side. Chashushuli is a slow-cooked beef stew with tomatoes, peppers and onions, and it came in a deep bowl with warm bread for scooping. For us it was mildly spicy. Then an adjaruli khachapuri, the boat-shaped bread filled with molten cheese and topped with a raw egg yolk and a slab of butter. 

With two glasses of wine, the bill came to 110 GEL. I booked over WhatsApp, and by the time we sat down there was only one free table left.

4. 1740 Boutique Hotel Restaurant

It's the restaurant of the 1740 Boutique Hotel Kazbegi, on Gorgasali Street, and the ground floor has more of a living-room feel than a restaurant one. Dark wooden walls, heavy gray curtains,  long wooden tables chairs that don't match. We'd booked, but the restaurant was far from full.

The menu is short, just a handful of dishes. We shared a pkhali selection and two plates of braised beef. The pkhali came on a vintage plate with little blue flowers painted on it: a mound of spinach, one of beetroot, and two rolls of eggplant, each topped with an edible flower. The beef was two dark, tender pieces set in a ring of mashed potato, with a few sorrel leaves and a marigold on top.

Everything tasted good. The catch is the portions, which were noticeably smaller than anywhere else we ate in Kazbegi. We only drank water, and the bill still came to 120 GEL, more than both Samani and Alpine Lounge, where we'd had drinks as well. 

5. Tiba

Tiba was actually in my plan for one of our evenings, but in the end we never made it there. I'm including it anyway, because it came up again and again while I was researching where to eat in Kazbegi, and the reviews are consistently very good.

It sits on Marjanishvili Street, on the side of town that looks across the valley toward Gergeti Trinity Church, and the dining room is one big open space with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the church and the mountains. The decor leans retro, with Soviet-era antiques and old posters on the walls.
One thing sets it apart from the other places: Tiba is open all day, from morning until 10pm, with a breakfast menu served until 1pm. So if you want a proper sit-down breakfast or lunch instead of a sandwich on the trail, this is probably the one to try. Signature dishes are the syrniki (small, thick cottage cheese pancakes, served with jam) at breakfast, and later in the day the khabizgina, the potato and cheese khachapuri I described earlier, made here with mountain potatoes and a matsoni dough. The kitchen also cooks dishes from western Georgia, like beef kharcho, a thick, spiced beef stew, and Imeretian khachapuri, the round, flat version of the cheese bread.

Book over WhatsApp. It's how many restaurants in town take reservations. The number is usually on the restaurant's Google Maps page or Instagram, and a short message the day before is enough.

Don't pick a restaurant just for the view. Plenty of places in Stepantsminda advertise a terrace facing Gergeti Trinity Church or Mount Kazbek, and some of them count on that more than on the kitchen. The best example is Rooms Hotel Kazbegi. As a hotel it's fantastic, a converted Soviet sanatorium with the most famous terrace in town, but recent reviews of its restaurant describe the food as mediocre, and that's why we didn't eat there. 

Try the wine by the glass whenever it's offered. Georgian wine is one of the best reasons to eat out here, and many restaurants pour several by the glass, so you can taste a few different ones over a couple of dinners without committing to a bottle. At Alpine Lounge, for example, glasses ran from 17 to 23 GEL. Look out for qvevri wines, fermented and aged in large clay jars buried in the ground, the way Georgians have made wine for centuries. 

For a picnic or a cheap snack, go to the bakery on the main street. Next to Market Ska, on Kazbegi Street, there's a popular local bakery selling fresh shoti bread (the long, canoe-shaped Georgian loaf), khachapuri and lobiani, a bread filled with spiced beans. For groceries, the Nikora and Magniti supermarkets a little further down the main road are cheaper than the Spar in the center.

Stepantsminda is small, and if you stay in or near the center, most of the restaurants in this guide are within walking distance. Maisi is the only one where you'll want a car or a taxi, since it's up in Gergeti on the other side of the river.
We stayed at Lens Design Hotel, a sleek, modern hotel right in Stepantsminda. It's directly across the road from 1740, which made that dinner the easiest of the trip.
Two of the restaurants on this list are inside hotels, so you could also stay upstairs from your dinner: the Alpine Lounge Hotel, on Pitskhelauri Street, and the 1740 Boutique Hotel Kazbegi, on Gorgasali Street. And even though we skipped its restaurant, Rooms Hotel Kazbegi is a fantastic place to stay, with the best-known view in town.

For more suggestions, check out my guide to the best places to stay in Kazbegi.

What is the best restaurant in Kazbegi?
Of the four places we tried, Maisi was the best. It's in Gergeti village, near the start of the trail to Gergeti Trinity Church, and it cooks traditional dishes from the Kazbegi region with a modern twist, like khachoerbo served with roasted baby potatoes and toasted focaccia. It's small and fills up quickly, so book ahead. I personally loved Samani a lot, too. 

Do you need to book restaurants in Kazbegi?
In July and August, yes. At Samani there was a long line of people without a reservation when we arrived, and Maisi was completely full. Most restaurants take bookings over WhatsApp, with the number listed on Google Maps or Instagram. Outside peak summer, it's usually easier to walk in.

How much does dinner cost in Kazbegi?
We paid between 100 and 160 GEL for two people at the four restaurants in this guide, sharing two or three dishes and having something to drink. The cheapest was Samani, the most expensive Maisi. For a quick, cheap bite, the bakery next to Market Ska on the main street sells fresh khachapuri and bread.

Can you pay by card in Kazbegi restaurants?
Some restaurants take cards, but we paid cash everywhere and it's safer to carry enough lari. There are several ATMs in the center of Stepantsminda, most of them within a few minutes' walk of the main square, so withdrawing cash in town is easy.

What food is Kazbegi known for?
Kazbegi sits in Khevi, a mountain region where cooking is based on wheat, dairy and meat. Local specialties include mkhlovani, a pie filled with greens and cheese, khachoerbo, cottage cheese melted with clarified butter, khabizgina, a khachapuri with potato in the filling, and mokhevuri khinkali, a plainer, mountain-style version of Georgia's dumplings.

Where can you have breakfast in Kazbegi outside your hotel?
Tiba serves a breakfast menu until 1pm, with dishes like syrniki, small cottage cheese pancakes. Maisi also opens in the morning for breakfast. We had breakfast at our hotel every day, so these come from the restaurants' own information rather than from our visit.

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