The Surprise of the Year in the Top Italian Restaurants guide takes us to a land known for its wine, albeit less so for its offering of Italian cuisine: Georgia. The award goes to the Alfredo restaurant in Tbilisi. We stopped in the country's capital to try out a series of addresses. Animated by slight skepticism, we had to reconsider. At a certain point during our meal, we completely forgot where we were due to the precision of the recipes and the balance of flavors on the plate. The protagonist is the owner, Dany Monsour, of Lebanese nationality, who lived in Italy, precisely in Sorrento. He gained experience in various restaurants, as did his staff.
The kitchen serves genuinely Italian dishes in terms of ingredients and cooking methods, from vitello tonnato to risotto with Sorrento lemons, well-blended and perfectly cooked. The menu has a Campanian accent, as does the pizza; we tried a pizza margherita with very fresh fiordilatte, with a dough that was very well risen and airy. For a moment, we looked bewildered at our dining companion: "Are we really in Tbilisi?".
The restaurant is located on one of the major commercial streets of the capital. On the wine front, we found around 200 labels of Italian wine on the menu, mostly from large producers, an unusual quantity in these parts. In addition to well-executed desserts, the final gem was a homemade limoncello of good quality, more focused on its aromaticity than sweetness. Incredible at Cibali, even in remote Georgia, you can enjoy authentic Italian cuisine.
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