DakaDaka, the new modern Georgian restaurant that officially opens on Heddon Street on January 17, takes hospitality very seriously. The restaurant is built around the spirit of supra – the art of hosting long, communal feasts rooted in sharing, ritual and excess. “In Georgia, it’s extreme,” co-founder Giorgi Mindiashvili tells Broadsheet. “The host literally puts everything on the table.” Wealth, he explains, is irrelevant. “It doesn’t matter whether you are rich or poor,” he says. “It’s about pride and self-respect. The Georgian person is defined by how he treats his guests.” For Mindiashvili, it’s anything but casual. “It’s holy,” he says. “It’s spiritual.”
This generosity might have something to do with why DakaDaka feels like it has been in situ for years, rather than days. That, and the fact the “modern” adjective its founders use to describe it doesn’t translate to the sort of bland, soulless aesthetic you might find elsewhere. A two-storey restaurant cloaked in dark grey with accents of colourful Georgian fabric, despite the fact the paint’s barely dry, it has the vibrant, welcoming buzz of a long-established institution.
For Mindiashvili, who was born and raised in Georgia and now runs an array of restaurants and boutique hotels across his home country, bringing Georgia’s food and drink culture to London felt overdue. “I had the feeling that London was lacking a great, centrally located Georgian restaurant,” he says. “I also had the feeling that London was lacking the real wine culture of Georgia.”
After all, the country is the birthplace of wine. It boasts an 8000-year-old winemaking tradition and a deep-rooted natural wine culture that long predates the trend. Mindiashvili says its time in the mainstream is long overdue. “Natural wine isn’t something new for us,” he says. “We’ve been doing it for thousands of years – it’s part of our DNA.” At DakaDaka, that heritage is expressed through a list of more than 150 Georgian producers who Mindiashvili has built personal relationships with, and which has been curated by Honey Spencer (Sune). It’s bolstered by cocktails starring house-made chaca – Georgia’s signature grape brandy.
The menu, by chef-patron Mitz Vora – who worked with Mindiashvil to imagine projects including Seabird and Tandoor Chophouse for hotel group Ennismore – blends traditional flavour profiles with locally sourced ingredients and his own contemporary, cheffy flare.
Vora describes Georgian cuisine as “very seasonal and naturally plant-forward”, with bold but balanced flavours. “The flavours always stay authentic. What we experiment with [at DakaDaka] are techniques and methods – adapting them for today, while keeping authenticity at the core.” For him, British produce also plays a key role in shaping the restaurant’s “modern Georgian” identity.
That identity is most clearly expressed through the country’s classics. There are Georgia’s beloved filled flatbreads, including the lesser-known kubdari, which is stuffed with a juicy patty of iberico pork and best eaten slathered with green ajika, a herby salsa. Plump, hand-folded khinkali (dumplings) are filled with molten cheese and winter truffle, or wild Scottish girolles, shitake and hedgehog mushrooms.
Elsewhere on the menu, mtsvadi – skewers – of native lamb are grilled over open fire, while a warming beef short rib and walnut stew named kharcho arrives on a bed of indulgent, cheese-laden polenta named ghomi (down in our books as top-tier spoon food). For Vora, it’s these dishes, alongside badrijani – aubergine rolls with walnut and pomegranate – which “really capture the soul of Georgian cooking”.
Less traditional dishes such as a grape salad with radicchio, honeycomb and St Tola goat’s cheese are Vora’s way of cutting through the richness. Meanwhile, an intriguing, gelatinous grape tart makes for a dessert not often seen in London.
Soon, the menu will extend to Supra Sundays, a Georgian-style Sunday lunch built around mtsvadi roasts and adjaruli khachapuri (Georgia’s famous boat-shaped cheese bread). Vora says he hopes diners leave with “a sense of warmth and positive energy – and maybe a new appreciation for Georgian food and wine”.
DakaDaka
10 Heddon Street, W1B 4BX
02046306435
Hours:
Tue to Wed midday–2.30pm, 5.30pm–10pm
Fri midday–2.30pm, 5.30pm–11pm
Sat midday–11pm
