Khachapuri guide: every regional variety explained

The bread that defines a nation

If you ask a Georgian what food best represents their country, the answer will almost always be khachapuri. This cheese-filled bread — simple in concept, endlessly variable in practice — is so central to Georgian identity that economists use it as an economic indicator: the “Khachapuri Index” tracks the cost of making one Adjaruli khachapuri as a measure of local inflation.

But khachapuri is not one thing. It is a family of dishes with dramatically different shapes, fillings, and textures across Georgia’s regions. The boat-shaped, egg-topped Adjaruli version is the most photographed. The thin, crispy-edged Imeruli is the most commonly eaten. The half-moon Achma from Adjara is arguably the most indulgent. Each is a window into its region.

This guide covers every significant regional variety, where to find the best versions, and enough background to appreciate what you’re eating.

The basics: what is khachapuri?

At its simplest, khachapuri is leavened bread dough filled or topped with cheese. The word breaks down as “khacho” (curd cheese) and “puri” (bread). But the cheese used varies by region, the dough varies, the technique varies, and what gets added to the cheese (butter, eggs, herbs) varies enormously.

The common thread is a combination of fresh or semi-fresh cheese — typically a blend of sulguni (stretchy, slightly salty, similar to mozzarella) and imeruli (fresh, mild, crumbly) — with enriched bread dough. Beyond that, each region has its own logic.

For context on where to eat khachapuri and what to order alongside it, also see our street food guide for Tbilisi and our supra feast guide.

Adjaruli khachapuri — the iconic boat shape

Region: Adjara (Black Sea coastal region)

Shape: Open boat / canoe, with raised sides forming a crust frame

Filling: Sulguni cheese base, fresh egg yolk, and a knob of butter added at the table

The Adjaruli is the version that appears on every food photograph from Georgia — a canoe of golden bread dough filled with bubbling melted cheese, with a raw egg cracked into the centre in the final minute of baking. The butter melts in alongside the yolk. You eat it by tearing the crust ends, dipping them into the cheese-egg-butter mixture, and working your way inward.

It is rich, indulgent, and deeply satisfying. It is also genuinely different in Adjara — specifically in Batumi — where the recipes and technique have been perfected over generations. The best Adjaruli in Georgia is found in Adjara itself; the versions in Tbilisi restaurants are often excellent but rarely quite match the original.

Where to eat it: Batumi’s restaurant strip near the Old Town, and family restaurants throughout Adjara. In Tbilisi, Retro or the restaurants on Aghmashenebeli Avenue.

Imeruli khachapuri — everyday Georgia

Region: Imereti (western Georgia)

Shape: Round, flat, sealed

Filling: Imeruli cheese (fresh, slightly salty, crumbly) kneaded with egg

The Imeruli is the workhorse of Georgian daily life — the khachapuri that appears on every table, in every bakery, and at every supra. It is a round, flat bread with the cheese enclosed inside, giving it a slightly puffed, sealed appearance. The cheese filling is the mildest of all the varieties — fresh imeruli cheese is crumbly and delicate.

Imeruli is typically cooked on a flat griddle (ketsi) rather than in an oven. The result is a slightly crispy bottom crust and a soft, stretchy top. Eaten hot, it is one of the most comforting foods on earth.

Where to eat it: Everywhere in Georgia, literally. Bakeries, street stalls, family restaurants. In Kutaisi (the main city of Imereti) you can eat Imeruli made by grandmothers who have been perfecting the recipe for 50 years.

Megruli khachapuri — double cheese

Region: Samegrelo (western Georgia)

Shape: Round, like Imeruli, but with cheese both inside and on top

Filling: Sulguni inside and a layer of sulguni melted on top

The Megruli is the cheese-maximalist’s khachapuri. It has the enclosed filling of an Imeruli, then adds a generous layer of grated sulguni on top that melts into a golden, slightly crispy cheese crust during baking. The result is more intensely cheesy and slightly saltier than Imeruli.

Sulguni — the main cheese of Samegrelo — is stretchier and saltier than imeruli, giving Megruli a distinctly different texture and flavour profile.

Where to eat it: Megrelian restaurants in Tbilisi and Zugdidi. Look for it on menus that feature other Megrelian specialities like Megrelian kharcho (a rich walnut and spice soup).

Achma — the layered khachapuri

Region: Adjara (a variant distinct from Adjaruli)

Shape: Square or round layered pastry

Filling: Sulguni cheese between multiple layers of boiled and baked dough, heavily buttered

Achma is the most unusual khachapuri — technically closer to a lasagne than a bread. Multiple sheets of dough are parboiled, then layered with butter and grated sulguni before the whole construction is baked until golden and crispy on top while remaining soft and stretchy inside.

The flavour is extremely rich — possibly the most indulgent thing on any Georgian menu. Achma is served in small squares and typically appears at celebrations and special occasions rather than everyday meals.

Where to eat it: Adjara, particularly in mountain villages and in Batumi’s traditional restaurants. Rarely found outside the region at its best.

Penovani khachapuri — the flaky option

Region: Widespread, but associated particularly with Tbilisi street food culture

Shape: Square or triangular

Filling: Imeruli cheese or sulguni

Dough: Puff pastry rather than bread dough

Penovani uses commercial or homemade puff pastry instead of leavened bread dough. The result is a flakier, lighter, less bread-like version — closer to a cheese pastry than a bread. It is common in Tbilisi’s bakeries and street food stalls as a quick snack.

Where to eat it: Any Tbilisi bakery, the Dezerter Bazaar market, street food stalls throughout the city.

Lobiani — the bean variant

Region: Racha (highland northern Georgia), but widespread

Shape: Round, like Imeruli

Filling: Spiced kidney beans (lobio) with fried onion and often pepper

Strictly speaking, lobiani is not khachapuri — it has no cheese. But it uses the same dough and the same principle, and Georgians treat it as part of the same bread family. The kidney bean filling is deeply savoury, spiced with fenugreek and coriander, and the bread is hearty and filling.

Lobiani is particularly popular as Lenten food, since it contains no animal products. In Racha, it is a staple; elsewhere in Georgia, it appears on most traditional restaurant menus.

Where to eat it: Any traditional Georgian restaurant. Excellent versions at family-run restaurants throughout the country.

Kubdari — the meat-filled brother

Region: Svaneti (high mountain region)

Shape: Round, similar to Imeruli

Filling: Spiced minced meat (pork, beef, or both) with onions and Georgian spices

Kubdari is the meat-filled cousin of khachapuri, native to the high mountain region of Svaneti. The filling uses minced or chopped meat heavily seasoned with Svan salt (a blend of spices unique to the region including garlic, fenugreek, and dried flowers) and fried onions. The bread is thick, substantial, and designed for mountain-climate eating.

Kubdari is rarely found outside of Svaneti authentically — what appears in Tbilisi restaurants is usually a reasonable approximation. To eat the real thing, you need to be in Mestia or a Svan village.

Where to eat it: Svaneti, particularly in Mestia. A trip to Svaneti for our Svaneti trekking guide should include kubdari at least once per day.

Khachapuri by the metre — a phenomenon

In recent years, restaurants in Tbilisi and resort towns have begun offering khachapuri sold by the metre or half-metre — long bread strips with various toppings or fillings. This is more of a modern restaurant concept than a traditional regional style, but it has become popular for group dining.

The best places for khachapuri in Georgia

Tbilisi

• Retro: Old-fashioned restaurant in the Old Town famous for its Adjaruli
• Machakhela chain: Not the most sophisticated option but reliably good and very traditional
• Any neighbourhood bakery (puris sakhe): Fresh Imeruli straight from the oven, usually for under 3 GEL

Kutaisi

The capital of Imereti is the spiritual home of Imeruli khachapuri. The local family restaurants near the Bagrati Cathedral area serve outstanding versions.

Batumi and Adjara

For Adjaruli at its absolute best, eat at family-run restaurants in the mountain villages of Adjara — places like Khulo and Shuakhevi — where the bread-baking tradition is oldest.

Tbilisi bakeries

The city’s neighbourhood bakeries (identifiable by the long log-fired oven called a tone inside) bake shoti bread and Imeruli khachapuri continuously from early morning. A freshly baked Imeruli for breakfast costs 2–4 GEL and is one of the great pleasures of Tbilisi mornings.

Making khachapuri at home

The dough is a simple enriched bread dough: flour, yeast, water, salt, a little sugar, and sometimes egg or yogurt for tenderness. The cheese filling for Imeruli requires imeruli or a fresh white cheese (Greek feta mixed with mozzarella approximates it reasonably well). Shape as a round, seal the filling inside, flatten slightly, and cook in a hot, dry heavy-bottomed pan for 4–5 minutes per side.

For Adjaruli, roll the dough into an oval, fold up the sides to form the boat shape, fill with grated sulguni (or mozzarella), bake at 220°C for 12 minutes, add an egg to the centre, return to the oven for 2 minutes, then add butter and serve immediately.

To learn from a local professional, a cooking class in Tbilisi gives you the authentic recipe and technique.

Book a Tbilisi cooking class with a local family

FAQ

What is the most popular khachapuri? Imeruli is the most commonly eaten across Georgia. Adjaruli is the most famous internationally and the most photographed.

Is khachapuri vegetarian? Imeruli, Megruli, Adjaruli, and Achma are all vegetarian. Kubdari and some other varieties contain meat.

How much does khachapuri cost in Georgia? From 2–4 GEL at a bakery for a basic Imeruli to 12–25 GEL for an Adjaruli in a Tbilisi restaurant. It is among the most affordable satisfying meals you can find anywhere.

Can I find good khachapuri outside Georgia? Georgian restaurants in major European cities and North American cities with Georgian communities serve khachapuri. Quality varies enormously; the cheese is the hardest component to replicate outside Georgia.

What do Georgians drink with khachapuri? Tea or coffee at breakfast. Wine (particularly amber wine) or beer at lunch or dinner. See our amber wine guide for pairing suggestions.

The history of khachapuri: tracing the bread across Georgian history

Khachapuri’s origins are poorly documented precisely because it has always been ordinary food — the kind of thing people made daily without writing it down. But bread-and-cheese combinations appear in Georgian literature and household records going back many centuries, and the specific regional variety system we see today appears to have crystallised during the period of Georgian kingdoms (roughly 9th–18th centuries).

The Adjaruli variety’s distinctive boat shape is thought to have developed in the Ottoman-influenced coastal region of Adjara, where the bread would be baked in large communal ovens alongside Turkish breads and flatbreads. The egg-in-the-centre addition (which makes Adjaruli unique internationally) appears in records from the 19th century and may have evolved as a way of incorporating the farm’s excess egg production.

The Imeruli variety — the most widespread and arguably the most ancient — reflects the practical needs of a landlocked mountain region: portable, filling, long-lasting (a dense cheese filling stays fresher longer than an open-topped bread), and cookable on a simple griddle without an oven.

Khachapuri culture: beyond the bread itself

Khachapuri occupies a specific cultural role in Georgian life that goes beyond mere food. In the hierarchy of meals, the supra (feast) is the highest expression of Georgian hospitality, and khachapuri appears at every supra. But khachapuri also appears at breakfast, as street food, as a quick lunch, as a comforting late-night snack, and at moments of celebration and mourning alike. It is democratic in a way that few national dishes manage — equally at home at a humble market stall and on a formal restaurant menu.

The baking of khachapuri is also a female-centred skill in traditional Georgian culture. Grandmothers pass recipes and technique to daughters and granddaughters; the variation between families and regions is the accumulated knowledge of generations of women adapting to available ingredients, fuel sources, and local preferences. Watching a Georgian grandmother make Imeruli khachapuri — the speed with which she works the dough, the precise feel of when the cheese is the right consistency, the judgement of when the griddle is hot enough — is an education in what embodied knowledge looks like.

A note on cheese

The cheese in khachapuri is not interchangeable. The two main cheeses used — imeruli (fresh, mild, crumbly) and sulguni (stretched, slightly salty, with a hint of acidity) — are made differently and taste significantly different. Getting the right cheese for each variety matters.

Imeruli cheese: Made by coagulating warm fresh milk with rennet, straining, and pressing without aging. Mild, slightly salty, with a fresh dairy flavour. The cheese that goes inside Imeruli khachapuri; also eaten with bread as a simple meal.

Sulguni: A pulled-curd cheese made by stretching imeruli in hot whey, producing a layered, elastic texture. Slightly more acidic and salty than imeruli. The primary cheese for Adjaruli (in the filling), Megruli (on top), and many other preparations.

Finding genuinely fresh imeruli cheese — made that morning, sold in the market — is a revelation if you have only eaten refrigerated supermarket cheese. The Dezerter Bazaar in Tbilisi has vendors selling fresh cheese daily.

Regional khachapuri variations beyond the main six

Beyond the well-known varieties, several less-documented regional khachapuri types exist:

Rachuli lobiani: The kidney bean version from Racha is sometimes considered a regional khachapuri, made with the specific spice profile of highland Racha (including local dried herbs).

Adjarian achma variant: In some mountain villages of Adjara, an achma variant uses local cheese that is more intensely salty and flavourful than urban sulguni, producing a different character entirely.

Tushetian meat bread: Similar in concept to kubdari but with specific Tush seasoning — dried fenugreek and local dried herbs — found only in Tusheti and in Tbilisi restaurants that specifically source from the region.

Khachapuri in Abkhazian style: The food traditions of the breakaway region include cheese breads with specific herb additions that differentiate them from mainland Imeruli.

These less-documented varieties are the reason that food-focused travellers to Georgia consistently report discovering something new on every visit — the regional depth of the cuisine is inexhaustible.

The economic importance of khachapuri

The “Khachapuri Index” mentioned earlier in this guide deserves elaboration. Since 2008, ISET (International School of Economics at Tbilisi State University) has published a quarterly “Khachapuri Index” tracking the cost of making one standard Adjaruli khachapuri using retail prices for all ingredients (flour, sulguni cheese, eggs, butter, yeast, milk, oil).

The index has become a genuine economic indicator used by Georgian and international economists to track Georgian consumer price inflation in a memorable, concrete way. Its components map directly to the agricultural products that most affect Georgian household budgets: dairy prices, wheat prices, and cooking oil prices.

The fact that this exists — that a cheese bread is economically central enough to serve as an inflation benchmark — is perhaps the most telling single indicator of khachapuri’s place in Georgian culture.